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For millions of Americans, Alan Alda will always be Hawkeye Pierce.

More than five decades after M*A*S*H first arrived on television, the wisecracking Army surgeon remains one of the most recognizable characters in TV history.

But at 90, Alda looks back at those years from a very different place.

The actor recently reflected on something fans have been telling him for decades — and it isn’t simply that they loved the show.

Some people have approached Alda and told him that watching Hawkeye inspired them to become doctors.

That realization has stayed with him.

Speaking during a May event in New York about the idea of “living usefully,” Alda explained that hearing those stories made him feel his work had contributed something beyond entertainment.

For a man who spent 11 seasons pretending to save lives on television, discovering that Hawkeye helped inspire real people to enter medicine gave the role an entirely different meaning.

Alda said it helped him realize he had “lived usefully.”

Hawkeye Wasn’t Perfect

Time has also changed the way Alda sees parts of his famous character.

Hawkeye was compassionate, funny and deeply opposed to the horrors surrounding him.

But he was also a product of 1970s television.

Alda has acknowledged that Hawkeye’s womanizing behavior would be viewed very differently today. He has said he tried even during the show’s original production to push the character away from some of that behavior, although he wasn’t successful every time.

Yet Alda doesn’t seem interested in pretending the past was perfect.

Instead, he remembers what M*A*S*H gave him.

He recently explained that he became better as an actor, writer and director during those years. But one of the things he valued most happened when the cameras weren’t even rolling: the cast sitting together between scenes, joking, talking and forming real connections.

More Than 40 Years Later

M*A*S*H ended on February 28, 1983.

Its finale, Goodbye, Farewell and Amen, became a television event watched by an enormous American audience and remains the most-watched scripted series finale in U.S. television history.

Alda went on to an extraordinary career.

He acted in The West Wing, The Aviator, ER, Marriage Story and many other projects. He became deeply involved in science communication and continued working even after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. At 90, he remains active and continues hosting his Clear+Vivid podcast.

But Hawkeye never completely left him.

Years ago, Alda said he couldn’t control how people would remember him. If he could leave something useful behind, he said, that would be enough.

Now he has evidence that he did.

Somewhere, there are real doctors who say a fictional surgeon at the 4077th helped put them on that path.

After all these years, that may be one of Hawkeye Pierce’s most remarkable legacies.

Morgan Fairchild was one of television’s most glamorous stars, while Johnny Carson was the undisputed king of late-night television.

For a time, the two were romantically involved — and according to Fairchild, people around Hollywood thought the relationship might lead to marriage.

But that’s not what happened.

Fairchild recently revealed that she was the one who ended the relationship with Carson.

For years, she says, many people simply assumed America’s most famous late-night host had dumped the beautiful blonde actress.

Fairchild knew otherwise.

And apparently, so did Bette Davis.

Fairchild recalled attending a large Hollywood gala when she suddenly felt someone tap her on the shoulder.

She turned around.

Standing there was Bette Davis, dressed for the evening.

The legendary actress leaned toward Fairchild and delivered a characteristically direct verdict:

“You were quite right to dump him.”

Fairchild was stunned.

It sounded, she later joked, like something straight out of a Bette Davis movie.

But the moment meant something deeper to her.

Davis knew Carson personally from her numerous appearances on The Tonight Show, and Fairchild felt that Davis understood something many others hadn’t: Carson hadn’t rejected Fairchild.

Fairchild had made the decision herself.

That unexpected encounter wasn’t the end of their story.

Fairchild later worked with Davis on the 1983 pilot of Hotel. She arrived nervous, having heard plenty of stories about the formidable Hollywood legend.

Instead, Davis surprised her again.

She praised Fairchild’s acting and even singled out her performance in The Seduction.

Fairchild recalled that after spending the day talking, Davis essentially “adopted” her.

The two women remained friends through the 1980s.

Decades later, Fairchild still remembers that first blunt show of support.

It was only a few words from one Hollywood legend to another rising star.

But sometimes a few words are all it takes to make a moment unforgettable.

Concern is growing for Lionel Richie after the 77-year-old music legend was hospitalized following his latest performance in St. Louis.

Richie performed Saturday night at The Muny in Forest Park, but concertgoers noticed something unusual toward the end of the show.

As he reached his finale, “All Night Long,” Richie asked his team to bring him a chair and completed the song while sitting down.

After the concert, Richie checked himself into a local hospital to undergo testing.

Reports say he was admitted to the intensive care unit as a precaution, with doctors investigating possible dehydration.

There is encouraging news.

A source close to Richie’s tour has said that he is OK, while other reports indicate he was hoping to leave the hospital as early as Tuesday.

Still, the incident has understandably concerned longtime fans because it comes only two months after another health scare.

During a June concert in St. Paul, Minnesota, Richie told the audience he was feeling dizzy and strange. He eventually ended that performance early and was taken to a hospital.

Two concerts were postponed before Richie returned to the stage and reassured fans that he was doing well.

Now, following Saturday night’s hospitalization, questions are once again being asked about how the demanding touring schedule may affect the legendary performer.

No serious diagnosis has been publicly announced, and Richie’s representatives have not provided detailed information about his latest hospitalization.

His next scheduled concert is currently September 26 in San Francisco.

For generations of fans who grew up with “Hello,” “Three Times a Lady,” “Dancing on the Ceiling” and “All Night Long,” the hope now is simple:

That Lionel gets the rest he needs — and comes home healthy.

Michael Landon has been gone for 35 years, but something he created on the set of Little House on the Prairie never disappeared.

It wasn’t simply the television show.

It was the family around it.

Dean Butler, who played Almanzo Wilder, recently opened up about how members of the original Little House cast are still trying to carry forward something Landon believed deeply in: staying connected to each other and to the people who loved the show.

According to Butler and Alison Arngrim, who played the unforgettable Nellie Oleson, Landon understood something about television audiences that wasn’t always obvious in Hollywood.

He respected them.

Arngrim remembered that even at the height of Little House, fans would sometimes recognize Landon from his earlier days as Little Joe on Bonanza.

Instead of brushing them aside because he had moved on to another show, Landon would engage with them, joke with them and acknowledge the affection they still had for him.

That attitude stayed with his cast.

Today, Butler credits Arngrim with helping keep members of the Little House family connected.

Together, they have also worked on events that allow the original stars to meet the generations of viewers who still remember Walnut Grove.

And they’re doing it again.

In September, numerous original cast members are scheduled to gather in Nashville for a three-day Little House on the Prairie reunion.

Arngrim and Butler will be joined by familiar faces including Rachel and Sidney Greenbush, Charlotte Stewart, Patrick Labyorteaux and others.

For Butler, these gatherings aren’t simply opportunities to sign autographs and take photographs.

They’re part of continuing what Landon started.

Landon wasn’t merely Charles “Pa” Ingalls.

He was one of the driving forces behind Little House, serving as star, producer, writer and director and shaping much of the emotional character of the series.

He died in 1991 at only 54.

But decades earlier, Landon apparently understood something remarkable about the program he was making.

People were going to keep watching it.

He was right.

More than 50 years after Little House on the Prairie first arrived on television, people who weren’t even born when the original episodes aired are discovering the Ingalls family.

Meanwhile, the actors who were there are still gathering together.

Still telling the stories.

Still meeting the fans.

And still trying to honor the man who helped turn a television cast into something that, all these years later, still feels remarkably like a family.

At 100 years old, Dick Van Dyke has already accomplished something few people ever will.

But apparently, simply reaching the century mark wasn’t enough for the legendary entertainer.

Because when Van Dyke shared a new glimpse of his life with fans, he wasn’t sitting comfortably at home reminiscing about Mary Poppins or The Dick Van Dyke Show.

He was exercising upside down.

The beloved actor posted a video on August 28 showing himself using an inversion table — a piece of exercise equipment that allows the body to tilt backward and eventually hang in an inverted position.

And yes, at 100, Van Dyke went for it.

With his feet above him and his head pointing toward the floor, the television legend calmly demonstrated another part of the exercise routine that has helped keep him moving well beyond an age when most people would have abandoned the gym decades earlier.

His message was characteristically simple:

Keep moving.

For longtime fans, however, seeing Van Dyke still challenging himself physically carries a special significance.

This is, after all, the same entertainer generations remember dancing with animated penguins in Mary Poppins, tripping over furniture on The Dick Van Dyke Show and bringing extraordinary physical comedy to practically everything he touched.

More than six decades later, movement remains part of his life.

Van Dyke has previously revealed that exercise isn’t an occasional activity for him.

He still goes to the gym three times a week.

His routine has included weight machines, stretching, sit-ups and yoga.

Ted Danson once remembered encountering Van Dyke at a Malibu gym and noticing something particularly fitting about the legendary performer.

Van Dyke didn’t simply move from one exercise machine to another.

He would dance between them.

That playful approach to life seems to have followed him all the way to 100.

Van Dyke has repeatedly credited staying active as one reason he has maintained his mobility as he’s grown older.

He has also spoken about another ingredient that can’t be found inside a gym.

Attitude.

The actor has said he tries not to carry anger or hatred through life and has maintained the youthful sense of humor audiences fell in love with decades ago.

And perhaps that’s what makes his latest video so unmistakably Dick Van Dyke.

It isn’t a carefully staged celebration of turning 100.

There aren’t 100 candles.

There isn’t a long speech about getting older.

Instead, there’s Dick — upside down, stretching his body and reminding everyone watching him to keep going.

For fans who first discovered him as Rob Petrie in 1961 or watched Bert dance across the rooftops in Mary Poppins, it’s another remarkable chapter in a career and life that has now stretched across an entire century.

Dick Van Dyke may be 100.

But judging by his latest video, he’s still determined to keep moving.