Alan Alda's autobiography travels a path less taken. Instead of
a sensationalist, name-dropping page-turner, Alda writes about his life
as a memory play, an exercise in recollecting his childhood, his parents
(dad Robert was a veteran on stage, film, and vaudeville), and his career.
You want to know about Alda's most famous work, the eleven years on M*A*S*H?
You have exactly 16 pages to do so, and guess what: It's one of the least
entertaining parts of the book. But should fans of the award-winning actor-
writer-director avoid this slim memoir? Not in the slightest. Slyly humorous
and open-hearted, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed is a breezy, most enjoyable
read. Alda's ability to recall his childhood (including backstage at raunchy
vaudeville shows), school years, stage struggles and successes is as
entertaining as one of his Emmy-winning teleplays. Alda is inordinately
attune recalling life's crystallizing moments: when religion no longer worked
for him, how something in his pocket made him forever a better actor, or his
mother's painful descent into dementia. Alda's ever present humor is a great
asset whether telling a charming love story on meeting his wife Arlene or
a life-threatening illness in a remote part of Chile ("I am in and out of
consciences, but I never take a break from the screaming. The show must go
on."). Like Alda's persona, his book is more human and less flash.
What would be filler in most books is often the mot entertaining and
revealing here; especially Alda's dynamic relationship with his parents.
Really, who else would name his memoir after an unfortunate trip to
the taxidermist? The year the book was published during a revival for
the 69-year-old; he was nominated for an Oscar, Emmy, and Tony in the same
year.

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