‘MAS*H’ co-star shaken by Linville’s death

Friday, April 14, 2000 | 9:13 a.m.

SUN WIRE REPORTS

Just last month Larry Linville, the actor who played Maj. Frank Burns, enjoyed a mini-"M*A*S*H" reunion with former cast mates Gary Burghoff and Mike Farrell. The trio was taping a remembrance of the acclaimed sitcom for a television special.

On Tuesday morning when word of Linville's death reached Burghoff, the actor who played Radar O'Reilly, quickly turned teary.

"Gary was really shaken up," his manager, Robert Crystal, said. "He was really taken aback. He feels that he lost not only a great friend, but a wonderful professional."

Linville, 60, best known for his work as the neurotic Burns on the groundbreaking comedy, died Monday at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center after months of health problems. He was admitted to the facility a day earlier.

The official cause was complications from pneumonia, but Linville suffered from cancer and had a lung removed in 1998 after a malignant tumor was found.

The Ojai, Calif., native had been living in New York.

Burns was one of the "M*A*S*H" regulars when the show began on CBS in September 1972 and his officious, tattletale, whiny personality quickly came to embody the hypocrisy, particularly that of the military, that the show strove to satirize. After receiving orders to report stateside Burns was replaced by Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester, a more serious character, not to mention a better doctor.

"M*A*S*H," at times with comedy and at times with sharp commentary, detailed life at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. Its ensemble cast also included Alan Alda, Burghoff, Loretta Swit and Wayne Rogers.

The character played by Linville brought a slapstick exuberance to the show, which has been broadcast and re-broadcast for decades around the world in scores of languages.

The repeated adulterous rendezvous between Hot Lips Houlihan and Frank Burns in her tent were legendary. Then there was the time that Burns, variously known as "Ferret Face" or "the Lipless Wonder," encountered a group of Koreans learning English. They had been taught to chant, "Frank Burns eats worms!"

As word about Linville's death reverberated around the many Internet sites devoted to "M*A*S*H," fans spoke of a deeper resonance than the slapstick antics. On a British web page, www.mash4077.co.uk., Christian Anderson wrote:

"In his role as Frank Burns, Larry Linville was probably the least understood actor on 'M*A*S*H.' People equated his character with the person and thus thought that since he played such an idiot he was therefore one as well. In fact, to play such a role is doubly difficult and to make it come off as well as Linville did was masterful."

Linville was a third-generation Californian born in Ojai, who began a lifelong hobby of designing and flying gliders as a child. He majored in engineering at the University of Colorado, where he performed with a local civic theater group, starring in "The Glass Menagerie." He was one of three Americans among 300 applicants selected for a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London.

He returned to California, where he acted in repertory theater for eight years. He played Iago in "Othello" in San Diego's Shakespeare Festival and appeared with Ingrid Bergman in "More Stately Mansions" in Los Angeles and on Broadway.

He had numerous roles on television shows ranging from "Marcus Welby, MD." to "Bonanza."

After "M*A*S*H" Linville was a guest star on many television series and had roles in "Grandpa Goes to Washington," "Checking In" and "Paper Dolls." Among his movies were "Rock 'n' Roll High School Forever" in 1990 and "Fatal Pursuit" in 1994. Along with other members of the "MASH" cast, he appeared in television commercials for IBM in the late 1980s.

Linville, who is survived by his wife, Deborah, attended a ceremony three years ago in South Korea at the closing of the mobile hospital that inspired the television show and the novel and movie that preceded it. He said it was humbling to think of the real doctors who sometimes operated on more than 150 patients in a day.

"We were like a plastic representation of the real people," he said.