Always Looking for the Funny Side

ON THE HEELS OF HIS BUZZY CAMEO ON THE FOUR SEASONS, THE TV LEGEND OPENS UP ABOUT LIVING WITH PARKINSON'S DISEASE—AND THE KEY TO HIS 68-YEAR MARRIAGE

- By BRIANNE TRACY

At 89, Alan Alda is as quick-witted as ever. Just ask him how he’s doing. “Making progress,” he says with a sly smile. He pauses before adding, “I didn’t say in which direction.”

Since being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2015, the beloved M*A*S*H star and father of three—who also has face blindness, or prosopagnosia, which makes it difficult for him to recognize people—says life has been a never-ending series of puzzles. “Almost every day I’m finding a new way to do something,” he says. “It’s gone from a part-time job to almost a full-time job keeping track of all these little solutions. But it keeps me always looking for the funny side.”

BREATHING NEW LIFE INTO THE FOUR SEASONS Alda says Fey (inset, on April 27) brought his story of The Four Seasons "up to date" in her new Netflix series. "The relationships are more modern, and there are phrases and words that are used now that didn't exist 44 years ago, like 'incel,'" says Alda (left, with Carol Burnett in the original 1981 film and, right, on the new series). "But the attention to friendship and marriage is there."