This lecture features Alan Alda in conversation with Roger Rosenblatt. Alan Alda has the distinction of being nominated for an Oscar, a Tony and an Emmy -- as well as publishing a bestselling book -- all in the same year (2005). His Emmy nomination was for his role on NBC's "The West Wing." His Tony nomination that year was for his role in the Broadway revival of David Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross."
On film that year, Alda appeared in Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator," for which he received an Academy Award nomination and for which he was also nominated for a British Academy Award.
Bio
Alan Alda
Alan Alda has recently had the distinction of being nominated for an Oscar, a Tony, and an EMMY - as well as publishing a bestselling book - all in the same year.
His memoir, entitled Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, and Other Things I've Learned, became a New York Times bestseller.
His 2005 EMMY nomination was for his role as Arnold Vinick, Republican candidate for the presidency on "The West Wing" (which brought him two SAG Award nominations in the same year, Best Actor and Best Ensemble in a Drama Series). He also received a Tony nomination for his role in the Broadway revival of David Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross." On film that year, he appeared in Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator," for which he received a nomination for an Academy Award and was also nominated for a British Academy Award.
2006 honors include his 32nd Emmy nomination and winning his sixth Emmy for his appearance on "West Wing" (Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series) as well as the National Science Board's Public Service Award, and his induction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He has earned international recognition as an actor, writer and director. In addition to "The Aviator," films include "Crimes and Misdemeanors," "Everyone Says I Love You," "Flirting With Disaster," "Manhattan Murder Mystery," "And The Band Played On," "Same Time, Next Year" and "California Suite," as well as "The Seduction of Joe Tynan," which he wrote, and also "The Four Seasons," "Sweet Liberty," "A New Life," and "Betsy's Wedding," all of which he wrote and directed.
For his role in Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors" he won the D.W. Griffith Award, the NY Film Critics Award, and was nominated for a British Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor.
On Broadway, he has appeared as the physicist Richard Feynman in the play "QED." He starred in the first American production of the international hit play "ART." In addition to his nomination for "Glengarry," he was also nominated for the Tony Award for his performances in Neil Simon's "Jake's Women" and the musical "The Apple Tree." Other appearances on Broadway include "The Owl and the Pussycat", "Purlie Victorious" and "Fair Game for Lovers" for which he received a Theatre World Award.
On television, he hosted the award winning series "Scientific American Frontiers" on PBS for eleven years, interviewing leading scientists from around the world.
He played Hawkeye Pierce on the classic television series "M*A*S*H," and also wrote and directed many of the episodes. Alda is the only person to be honored by the TV Academy as top performer, writer and director. His 32 Emmy nominations include one in 1999 for his performance on "ER." In 1994 he was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.
Other Television performances include "Truman Capote's The Glass House" and "Kill Me If You Can," for which he received an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Caryl Chessman, the inmate who spent 12 years on death row.
He has won the Director's Guild Award three times for his work on television, and has received six Golden Globes from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and seven People's Choice Awards, and has been nominated for two Writer's Guild Awards.
Alan Alda was born in New York City, the son of the distinguished actor, Robert Alda. He began acting in the theater at the age of 16 in summer stock in Barnesville, Pennsylvania.
During his junior year at Fordham University, he studied in Europe where he performed on the stage in Rome and on television in Amsterdam with his father.
After college, he acted at the Cleveland Playhouse on a Ford Foundation grant. On his return to New York, he was seen on Broadway, off-Broadway and on television. He later acquired improvisational training with "Second City" in New York and "Compass" at Hyannisport. That background in political and social satire led to his work as a regular on television's "That Was the Week That Was."
For twenty years he was a member of the Board of the Museum of Television & Radio, and for ten years, from 1989 to 1999, he was a Trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation.
Roger Rosenblatt
Roger Rosenblatt is a journalist, author, playwright, and teacher. William Safire of the New York Times wrote that his work represents "some of the most profound and stylish writing in America today." His television essays for "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" on PBS have won a Peabody and an Emmy award. His essays for TIME magazine have won two George Polk Awards, awards from the American Bar Association, the Overseas Press Club, and others.
Rosenblatt's journalism career began in 1975 as literary editor of The New Republic. He has also been a columnist and editor-at-large for Life magazine, the editor of U.S. News & World Report, a columnist and editorial board member of The Washington Post and editor-at-large of TIME, Inc. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, The New Republic, Esquire and elsewhere.
He is the author of ten books, including a collection of his writings, The Man in the Water, Coming Apart: A Memoir of the Harvard Wars of 1969, and the national bestseller, Rules for Aging. His book Children of War (1983) won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His most recent book, Lapham Rising (2006), his first novel, was loosely based on the lecture he delivered on major trends of the 20th century at Chautauqua in 2004.
Rosenblatt is currently a professor in the English department at Stony Brook University, where he teaches in the writing program at Stony Brook Southampton. He was most recently the Edward R. Murrow Visiting Professor of the Practice of the Press and Public Policy at Harvard University and held the Parsons Family Chair at the Southampton graduate campus of Long Island University.
Electronic system for transmitting still or moving images and sound to receivers that project a view of the images on a picture tube or screen and recreate the sound. Early versions (1900–20) of the cathode-ray (picture) tube, methods of amplifying an electronic signal, and theoretical formulation of the electronic scanning principle later became the basis of modern TV. RCA demonstrated the first all-electronic TV in 1932. Cable TV systems (introduced in the late 1940s), colour TV (in the 1950s), and recording or playback machines (in the 1980s; seeVCR) followed. Digital high-definition (HDTV) systems (1990s) provide sharper, clearer pictures and sound with little interference or other imperfections and have the potential to merge TV functions with those of computers.
Major branch of the U.S. military forces, charged with preserving peace and security and defending the nation. The first regular U.S. fighting force, the Continental Army, was organized by the Continental Congress on June 14, 1775, to supplement local militias in the American Revolution. It was placed under the control of a five-member civilian board, and U.S. military forces have remained in civilian control ever since. The U.S. Constitution named the president as commander in chief, and in 1789 the civilian Department of War was established to administer the armed forces. The Continental Army was officially disbanded in 1783, and a small regular army was established. Thereafter, the army's size increased during times of crisis, swelled by conscription, and decreased during peacetime. The Department of the Army is organized as a military section of the Department of Defense and is headed by the Secretary of the Army. The Army Staff gives advice and assistance to the secretary and administers civil functions, including the civil-works program of the Corps of Engineers. The army also administers the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. In 2000 there were about 400,000 soldiers on active duty.
I am not sure that David Shenk has fully appreciated the real implications of the things he is talking about - the "scientists" quoted above are still struggling.Tech Expo
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