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• The West Wing
• Bio on Mr. Alda
• PBS's Scientific American Frontiers

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Tavis: It is a pleasure, an honor, in fact, to welcome TV legend Alan Alda to this program. On December 8, you can see him in his new role on 'The West Wing,' followed on December 17 by the opening of his latest movie, 'The Aviator,' and then in early '05, he's back here on PBS with another installment of the award-winning 'Alan Alda in Scientific American Frontiers.' So much for a restful holiday season. For what is likely to be one of the biggest films of '04, here now a scene from--'05, I should say--a scene from 'The Aviator.'

Brewster: We didn't sail. We flew.

Hughes: You flew?

Brewster: Yeah.

Hughes: Ah. Are you sure you want to do this, Owen? You want to go to war with me?

Brewster: It isn't me, Howard. It's the United States government. We just beat Germany and Japan. Who the hell are you?

Tavis: Ouch!

Both: Ha ha ha!

Alan Alda: So watch yourself.

Tavis: Yeah. Nice to see you.

Alda: Good to see you. I had to shake with my left because my shoulder's still recovering.

Tavis: How's the recovery coming?

Alda: Very well, thank you.

Tavis: I don't want my mama to ask me, "Why did Mr. Alda give you his left hand?"

Both: Ha ha ha!

Tavis: You and I were talking before we came on the air here, and you were asking me if I always wear cuff links.

Alda: And you do, huh?

Tavis: I wear French cuffs pretty much all the time. You--You don't like French cuffs?

Alda: Well, I do. I have these wonderful cuff links I got in a flea market for $15. They're watches. A watch in each one, you know? But I never wear them.

Tavis: Why don't you wear them? Do you have any French-cuff shirts?

Alda: No.

Tavis: Ha ha ha!

Alda: You know--

Tavis: That's a good place to start. You know, you need these shirts that have holes in them, and you can stick these things through the holes. That's kinda how that works.

Alda: How long have they been doing that? That's really--

Tavis: Ha ha ha! I love you, because what we're getting now is what you've given us for so many years, and I'm so happy that 'M.A.S.H.' is now out on DVD.

Alda: Oh. Good.

Tavis: Did you know this?

Alda: No. Am I getting anything?

Both: Ha ha ha!

Alda: If I am, I'm glad, too.

Tavis: Somebody should have told you about this.

Alda: I'm just getting used to cuff links.

Both: Ha ha ha!

Tavis: Now that I've told you about this, you better call your agent and say, "You didn't tell me 'M.A.S.H.' was out on DVD."

Alda: I didn't bring my cell phone. This could make this 10 minutes really interesting.

Tavis: Ha ha ha! Anyway, 'The West Wing.' So let me just ask you straight out. Are you going to be the president?

Alda: Well, I--Nobody--

Tavis: If this thing continues, Bartlet can't--

Alda: No. Well, he's already had 2 terms.

Tavis: Exactly. He can't run.

Alda: So the other guy, uh, Jimmy Smits is gonna run as the Democrat, see? But they haven't mentioned anything to me about who's gonna win. But isn't it odd they have all these Democrats under contract, you know?

Both: Ha ha ha!

Tavis: Nobody else in Washington is.

Alda: What are they gonna do with them? So I--We'll see.

Tavis: We'll see.

Alda: See, here's what I think they should do. I haven't said this to them yet. I think they should do a poll on the Internet every week and see who the people think are pulling ahead. Who do they think ought to be in office?

Tavis: It's a good marketing strategy.

Alda: Well, no, it would be interesting, you know? And then--And then, uh...and then I would call my agent.

Both: Ha ha ha!

Tavis: I was about to say you haven't told them that idea. Your agent didn't tell you about the DVD series, so--

Alda: No, no.

Tavis: We gotta get some communication going.

Alda: Of all those things you mentioned that I'm doing in the next year or so... I'm even doing more than that. I'm gonna do 'Glengarry Glen Ross' on--on Broadway with Liev Schreiber, and that's in the spring. So I mean, I'm so busy, I don't even know--I hope I don't win the presidential election.

Tavis: Why stay so busy? You don't have to do this.

Alda: No. Only because I love it. Because it makes me--It makes me happy to do things that I think are--are, you know, good material...with good people, and, uh--and it doesn't matter how big the audience is for it. I had a wonderful time this last spring, working in a little theater of 400 people. Sag Harbor, New York. I had the best time. We had this wonderful play. I had a wonderful actress to work with. We did it for, you know, a couple of weeks. That was as much fun for me as--as, uh--well, I was gonna say as much fun as 'The Aviator,' but 'The Aviator' has got this extra element to it that's--you can't, uh--you can't take away from it.

Tavis: Since you mentioned that, tell me about it. Because the buzz on this thing is that it's all that.

Alda: It's a good movie. I really like it. In the course of helping it get open--I go to screenings and stuff--it's one of the few movies that I find I'm really surprised to see that I look forward to seeing it again.

Tavis: Right.

Alda: 'Cause there's--

Tavis: 'Cause you're just that good in it.

Alda: I just hope--That's how I hurt my arm, was patting myself on the back.

Tavis: Ha ha ha! Yes!

Alda: I had to have an operation for that. Are you kidding? But Leo is so good in it. He--DiCaprio. He is so good. He's one of the best actors in the country, and I just love watching him, and, of course, you know, Scorsese is one of the masters of all time, in film history.

Tavis: You're no slouch, Alan Alda. Tell me about the character you play in the movie.

Alda: Oh, he's a really bad guy. Very slimy guy, who was--

Tavis: Nothing like you, in other words.

Alda: Yeah. Well, actually, I get to play the real me. Nobody knows that. This guy was the senator from Maine, and he was so corrupt and was so much in the pocket of Pan Am, they used to call him the senator from Pan Am. All he tried to do was get legislation through congress that would help Pan Am, and he tried to destroy Howard Hughes because he ran TWA at the time. So, he's really a bad guy, but what's wonderful about the real--This was a real guy I play. Owen Brewster was a senator in those days, in the forties. He took on Howard Hughes, who was such a national hero because he had done--he had exploits as an aviator that were extraordinary. People loved him. Hughes was giving testimony in a Senate hearing room. He was so popular that he could make the guy who was questioning him have to give testimony himself to defend himself, at his corrupt practice. Now, I don't think you'd see that today. I mean, I don't know if it's ever happened before. But he was a very powerful figure, Hughes.

Tavis: I had heard from a number of different people--I never met you until this conversation tonight. And just in doing some research, I asked people, what do you know about Alan Alda? Just people I would meet here and there. And I heard from a number of different people, a number of different places, what a wonderfully nice person you were. I mean, everybody I asked about you said, "He is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. You're gonna be honored to spend some time with this guy." And I wondered what makes this guy so nice. I started reading in preparation for our conversation--

Alda: There are books and papers on--

Tavis: About Alan Alda. Books and papers, I went to the library. You know, spent some--

Alda: I think somebody got a Ph.D. in that.

Tavis: Alan Alda studies, I majored in for--for a couple of weeks getting ready for this conversation. And I started to see things about your life that I think could lead to somebody being a humanist. I didn't realize, for example, that you had polio as a child.

Alda: Yeah. When I was 7.

Tavis: Tell me about this.

Alda: Well, I--There was an epidemic in those days, and that was before the vaccine. And there really wasn't any treatment except Sister Elizabeth Kenny, a nurse from Australia had developed a treatment, which involved very hot wrappings of woolen blankets. Almost scaldingly hot. And massage that involved sort of bending your thumb back down behind your back. To stretch the muscles. Extremely painful. Everybody who went through those treatments knows what I mean. They were just awful. And my parents, who had no money, had to--they didn't have anybody to administer these treatments. They had to do it themselves. So here your parents are torturing you against their own will. You know, they don't want you to hurt. So it was an interesting experience. I don't know what it did to me to make me a better person, but I remember being aware at the age of 7 of getting ready to pound the bed in pain--every 2 hours, you know, for months--knowing that my parents didn't want to hurt me and knowing how hard it was for them. So there was some kind of beginning of empathy there, I guess. I remember going through that feeling. I don't know really if that's the beginning.

Tavis: I suspect, though, that people who suffered, though, if they get the lesson that can be learned--Like my grandmother always said with every experience, you ask yourself, "What's the lesson? What's the blessing?"

Alda: Yeah. If you're lucky enough to ask that question.

Tavis: If you're lucky enough to ask.

Alda: And then if you're lucky enough to get an answer, because sometimes an awful lot of people suffer, and there's no lesson to be learned, and it's just like either just really bad luck, or somebody is being really mean to you.

Tavis: Yeah. So, I'm reading more, and then I discover that you've been married for almost 50 years.

Alda: 47 years. Yeah.

Tavis: And to the same woman.

Alda: Yeah. Well, yes. Yeah. She'd get really pissed if I didn't.

Tavis: How'd you pull this off?

Alda: Uh, well, I love her, and she loves me. It's not complicated.

Tavis: But, you know, that's a great answer, though. But people think--I'm not married yet. But the rap that marriage gets these days is that it's a real difficult thing, and you gotta get past the 2-year mark. Then they say if you get past the 7-year mark, and then if you get--And then I see folk who married 30 years getting divorced, so maybe it is simple, but it doesn't appear to be simple.

Alda: You know that story about the couple who are 97 years old, and they're getting a divorce? And the guy says, "You've been married 70 years. Why do you wanna divorce?" They said, "We were waiting until the children died."

Tavis: But we're not gonna hear that about you and Mrs. Alda.

Alda: Oh, no, no. No, but it's hard. It's hard, but that's the thing. A lot of things in life are hard, but if you have somebody to go through it with who's sympathetic and who you know is looking out for you and you're looking out for that person, then it's easier. You know, but it is hard. Sure it's hard. You put any 2 people together and lock 'em up in a relationship for years... I don't care if it's the Pope and Mother Teresa. By the way, I think they did have a thing. But they would drive each other nuts. 2 people, it's hard to--for 2 people to get along for long.

Tavis: Speaking of 2 folk hanging out, I'd love to spend some time hanging out with you. It's an honor to meet you.

Alda: Thank you. A pleasure to meet you.

Tavis: Glad to have you on the program. For all of the stuff I mentioned that Mr. Alda is doing, go to our web site, 'cause there's no way in the world I can remember all the stuff I said a few minutes ago that he is doing.

Alda: I can't remember, either.

Tavis: 'Cause he's doing so much stuff, and he added on other stuff he's doing, so anyway, go to our web site at pbs.org and check out all of the good stuff that Alan Alda is doing. It's an honor to have you on the program.

Alda: Thank you very much.

Tavis: Up next on this program, Grammy-winning singer Dianne Reeves. First a conversation with Ms. Reeves and then a special holiday performance from Ms. Reeves. Dianne Reeves coming up in just a moment. Stay with us.