‘M*A*S*H’ Star Alan Alda’s Wife of 65 Years Won His Heart By Eating Cake Off The Floor

Aug 22, 2022

Alan Alda is an American actor best known for his role in the hit television series “M*A*S*H.” He is a six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner and he's also received three Tony Award nominations. Some of his most popular films include "The Aviator," "Bridge of Spies" and "Marriage Story." Alan has also made memorable recurring appearances on "The West Wing," "30 Rock" and “Ray Donovan.” 

The star was born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo on January 28, 1936. He grew up in New York City but spent the majority of his time traveling with his father, who was a burlesque singer and actor. He was diagnosed with polio when he was 7 and had to undergo painful treatments. 

Despite his challenges growing up, Alan found solace in acting and said the hyper-vigilance he had to develop while living with his mother eventually helped him with his acting performances. His career began in the 1950s as a member of the improvisational group Compass Players. In 1958 he appeared on the show "The Phil Silvers Show," and from there, he began to perform on Broadway for much of the 1960s. 

In 1972, Alan auditioned for "M*A*S*H" and landed the role of Hawkeye Pierce. For his performance, Alan was nominated for an Emmy Award 21 times. He took home five of those awards. The actor also had the opportunity to write 19 episodes of the beloved TV series. 

Alan has also been married to his wife, Arlene Alda, for 65 years. Read on to learn more about the endearing way the couple met and their journey together, as well as Arlene’s fraught first meeting with Alan's mother, Joan.

Alan met Arlene at a party in New York City in 1956 while he was a student at Fordham University. The story goes that a rum cake had fallen on to the floor and, not wanting it to go to waste, Alan began eating it off the floor. In a surprising turn, Arlene joined him. When a tweet of the incident went viral in August 2021, Alan was quick to comment with an equally cute elaboration of his own.

“We did eat the rum cake off the floor and were inseparable after that. But I was captivated by her even earlier in the meal when I heard her at the end of the table laughing at my jokes. She had me at Ha,” he wrote.

Arlene, a photographer and author, remembered the incident with joy as well, as she told the New York Times in 1981: “we were the only two people who did it and I think it cemented our friendship for life. That sort of playfulness has stood us in good stead for 24 years.”

In his autobiography “Never Have Your Dog Stuffed,” released in 2005, Alan recalled his anxiety in the early days of his courtship. He said after their meeting at the party, it took him three weeks to gather up the courage to ask Arlene out on a date. He took her to an off-Broadway production of a Gertrude Stein opera but was still unsure about his choice of venue. “Was ever woman in this way wooed?” he recounted.

Despite his fears, Alan and Arlene fell thoroughly in love and were married on March 15, 1957. They are the parents of three daughters and have eight grandchildren. And the secret to their lasting marriage? “A short memory,” Alan told The Guardian in 2019.

Alan recalled in the same autobiography that Arlene’s first meeting with his mother did not go so well. Arlene had come over for lunch and his mother was baking Swedish pancakes. As Arlene watched, his mother began acting strangely.

“She stopped chatting and looked at Arlene with squinted eyes. ‘You’re watching pretty carefully, aren’t you.’ Arlene heard the suspicion in her voice but didn’t react to it. She said it looked as though it were going to be delicious. My mother knew she was being conned. ‘You’re going to try to steal this, aren’t you.’ Arlene tried to answer that she wasn’t, but my mother could smell blood. ‘You think you can sell this recipe and get rich. I know what you’re doing. This is mine. I invented this,’” Alan wrote.

He told The New Yorker his mother was “schizophrenic and paranoid” and he “had to decode her reality to figure out what actual reality was. She would see things that weren’t there. She’d assume she was being spied on.”

He also said of the baking incident: “I was angry for a long time because I didn’t know why she behaved that way and I felt I didn’t have a real mother. When I look back, I realise that even with her illness, she loved me very, very much and expressed it in the only ways she could  … before she died, I understood a lot better. And I went to a lot of trouble to try to make her last days as comfortable as I could.”

While Alan's mother passed on Oct. 26, 1990, he and Arlene continued to live, love and grow together. On March 15, 2017, Alan tweeted a sweet photo of he and his wife for their 60th wedding anniversary, captioned briefly: “Still laughing.”

What do you think of Alan Alda and his wife Arlene’s cute first meeting? Have you also gone through a similar experience of caring for a family member with an illness? Let us know and don’t forget to pass this on to family and friends.