Hawkeye needed a real MASH unit following a weekend health scare.
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Alan Alda, the former star of TV's M*A*S*H, is recovering in a hospital in northern Chile Monday after undergoing an emergency appendectomy, his rep confirmed.
A tube icon for his indelible role as Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce in CBS' long-running comedy, Alda was rushed to emergency at the Regional Hospital in La Serena, 300 miles north of the capital of Santiago, where he was diagnosed with an intestinal blockage. He went under the knife early Sunday.
"It seems to have been a successful surgery and he's doing better," Alda's spokeswoman said.
The Associated Press quotes hospital director Julio Rojas telling Chile's Cooperativa radio station that Alda is doing fine and is expected to be discharged on Tuesday.
According to the report, the actor requested no visitors on Monday while he awaited the arrival of his wife, who was flying down to be by his side.
Alda was filming an astronomy documentary at a massive telescope in the Chilean Andes for PBS' Scientific American Frontiers, a show he has hosted for the last seven years, when he fell ill.
Since M*A*S*H ended its 11-year run in 1983, the six-time Emmy winner (he's the only person to ever win an Emmy for acting, writing and directing) has divided his time pretty evenly between stage, big-screen and television work. His most notable film credits of late include 1996's Flirting with Disaster and 2000's What Women Want. He starred in the 2001 telefilms Club Land and The Killing Yard and also had an Emmy-nominated stint on ER in 1999.
Next up is a role as a senator in Martin Scorsese's Howard Hughes biopic, The Aviator, due out next year.
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