The combat boots and dog tags Alan Alda wore while playing the wisecracking surgeon Hawkeye on the beloved television series “M-A-S-H” have sold at auction for $125,000
ByJAMIE STENGLE Associated Press
FILE – Cast members of the television series “M*A*S*H” take a break on the set during taping in Los Angeles on Sept. 15, 1982. The actors, from left, are, William Christopher, Harry Morgan, Mike Farrell, Alan Alda, and Jamie Farr. The combat boots and dog tags that Alda wore every day as he portrayed the wisecracking surgeon Hawkeye on the beloved television series “M*A*S*H” meant so much to him that when the show ended 40 years ago, he took them with him. But now, he’s ready to let them go to benefit another passion: his center that helps scientists communicate better. Heritage Auctions is offering up the worn boots and dog tags on July 28 in Dallas. (AP Photo/Wally Fong, File)
The Associated Press
DALLAS — The combat boots and dog tags Alan Alda wore while playing the wisecracking surgeon Hawkeye on the beloved television series “M-A-S-H” sold at auction Friday for $125,000.
Alda held onto the boots and dog tags for more than 40 years after the show ended but decided to sell them through Heritage Auctions in Dallas to raise money for his center dedicated to helping scientists and doctors communicate better.
The buyer’s name wasn’t released.
Alda, 87, said he wore the boots and dog tags for the 11-season run of the show about a Korean War medical unit. His character, Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce, was a talented surgeon who helped ease the stress of working in a war zone with quips and practical jokes. The show’s final episode, which aired in 1983 and was written and directed by Alda, was the most watched TV show in U.S. history.
The boots and dog tags, given to him by the costume department, “made an impression on me every day that we shot the show,” said Alda, who won five Emmys for his work on the sitcom.
Alda said auctioning off the dog tags and boots now made sense. “I saw this as a chance to put them to work again,” he said.
The money raised from the auction will go to the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University in New York, which aims to help scientists and doctors communicate better through the use of improvisational exercises and other strategies.
Associated Press writer Ken Miller in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.