Beloved TV star Alan Alda has given an update on his battle with Parkinson’s disease.
The actor, screenwriter and director is clearly leaning on his famed sense of humour, having been diagnosed with the degenerative condition in 2015.
“Making progress,” he told People. “I didn’t say in which direction.”
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Alda, 89, found fame on M*A*S*H, before taking his writing and acting skills to movies including Betsy’s Wedding and The Four Seasons.
He also suffers from face prosopagnosia, a neurological condition which leaves him unable to recognise the faces of people, regardless of if he knows them.
Alda said every day he’s “finding a new way to do something” and described it as “a little like a game”.
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Although he did admit managing his condition has gone from a “part-time job to almost a full-time job”.
”But it keeps me always looking for the funny side,” he added.
Alda continues to act in select projects, including in Tina Fey’s recent adaption of his movie The Four Seasons for Netflix.
The series has already been renewed for a second season.
Alda originally played controlling lawyer Jack in The Four Seasons. In the recent Netflix version he took on the role of Anne’s father.
Alda had taken to X to congratulate Tina Fey on The Four Seasons.
”I want to congratulate Tina Fey,” he began in the video. “Last week her new series The Four Seasons was number one on Netflix worldwide.
“Tina I knew you’d take The Four Seasons movie that I wrote and directed all those years ago and do something wonderful with it, and you have,” Alda continued.
He ended the video by inviting Fey back onto his podcast Clear+Vivid to discuss how she achieved the feat.
Sacrifice ‘lonely’ Alan Alda had to make to film M*A*S*H
Alda has been married to his wife Arlene, 92, for 68 years. The couple first met at a dinner party in New York City in 1956.
He had recalled their first meeting on X in a post that quickly went viral.
A social media user had screenshot Alda’s Wikipedia page which stated that Alda and Arlene met over a rum cake that fell on the floor. They bonded when they both decided to still eat the dessert.
Alda reshared the screenshot along with the comment: “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.”
It was Arlene who first noticed an early sign of Parkinson’s in her husband. She told him he was no longer swinging his arms when he walked, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Muscle stiffness is an early sign of the disease.
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