Alan Alda

Alan Alda is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and author. A sixtime Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner, he is widely known for his roles as Captain Hawkeye Pierce in the TV series MASH and Arnold Vinick in The West Wing. He has also appeared in many feature films, most notably in Crimes and Misdemeanors as pretentious television producer Lester and in The Aviator as U.S. Senator Owen Brewster, the latter of which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Alda was born Alphonso Joseph DAbruzzo on January 28, 1936, in New York City, and had a peripatetic childhood, as his parents traveled around the United States in support of his fathers job as a performer in burlesque theatres. His father, Robert Alda , was an actor and singer, and his mother, Joan Browne, was a homemaker and former beauty pageant winner. His father was of Italian descent and his mother was of Irish ancestry. His adopted surname, Alda, is a portmanteau of ALphonso and DAbruzzo.

Source: Wikipedia