Two M*A*S*H Actors Didn't Always Get Along Off-Screen

Watching the classic 1970s sitcom "M*A*S*H," it's easy to imagine that everyone involved was just as close behind-the-scenes as their characters were onscreen, but that wasn't always the case. Like any workplace, there were occasionally some disagreements and clashing personalities, though they could be exacerbated by the stresses of making a television series. The show achieved wild popularity early on and inflated that stress even more, leading to all kinds of casting change-ups as the actors pursued roles on shows that weren't big ensembles and even leading series creator Larry Gelbart to walk away from "M*A*S*H" after season 4. One of the actors who left the series was McLean Stevenson, who portrayed Colonel Henry Blake, the commanding officer of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. He was frustrated because he felt like he was playing second fiddle to Alan Alda's character, Captain Hawkeye Pierce, and ended up being written out of the show at the end of season 3, with Colonel Blake dying in a tragic plane crash.

It seems there might have been another reason behind Stevenson's departure, as the actor revealed to the Kingston Whig-Standard (via MeTV) that he got along well with all of his castmates except for the one he engaged with the most: Gary Burghoff, who played company clerk and the colonel's right-hand man, Corporal Radar O'Reilly. 

Stevenson shared that he had a "love-hate" relationship with Burghoff and that the two of them could butt heads behind-the-scenes, saying:

"Probably, of the six of us he did the best job as an actor. He's a brilliant actor. But sometimes I was a problem for him and he sometimes was a problem for me."

Stevenson went on to admit that sometimes his own ego was the problem, as it became inflated on account of his character's popularity, but he wasn't the only one to allegedly have some beef with Burghoff. The actor eventually left the series himself in season 7 despite being one of the show's most beloved characters, due to a combination of burnout and a desire to focus on his family, but there were accounts of the actor being difficult to work with. A 1983 biography of Alda by Raymond Strait alleged that Burghoff and Stevenson once got into a yelling match and that Wayne Rogers, who played Trapper John, once got so annoyed with Burghoff that he threw a chair at him. That doesn't sound like a particularly pleasant working environment, but whatever tensions might have existed offscreen didn't translate to the show, because Radar and Colonel Blake seem genuinely close. 

Whatever annoyances the cast felt with Burghoff may have translated to the show a little bit in the way the characters react to Radar. Most of the characters treat Radar like their irritating kid brother, which may have in turn made Burghoff feel unappreciated. After all, he was the only actor to appear in the 1970 Robert Altman movie that inspired the show as well as the television series, but his character was frequently the butt of the show's jokes. As some of the other actors got more involved in the series (especially Alda, who wrote and directed episodes), Burghoff wrote an episode about Radar that never got made, another thing that may have led to him feeling lesser than some of his co-stars. 

It's a shame Stevenson and Burghoff had some disagreements on set and that Burghoff may have felt underappreciated, but in the end they helped create "M*A*S*H," one of the greatest television shows of all time. And no one can take that away from them.