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Larry Gelbart explained that many characters on M*A*S*H took on the traits of the actors that played them
"While they obviously never truly became these characters, a good many of the roles began to take on the attributes of those who played them."
According to M*A*S*H executive producer Larry Gelbart, the men and women of the 4077th weren’t entirely fictional.
In Gelbart’s memoir, Laughing Matters, he revealed that as time went on and he began to get to know the actors, including Alan Alda, Loretta Swit, and Jamie Farr, the characters he depicted on screen began to adopt the traits of those who played them.
“Over a period of time, I began taking aspects of their own personalities, their professional, as well as personal, strengths and weaknesses, and folded the various bits and pieces into their characters,” wrote Farr. “In time, the lines between who they were and who they were pretending to be began to blur, and each was able to behave ever more naturally before the camera, without the need to wholly act; but then, the best actors never ever let you catch them acting.”
As they were lending some of themselves to the role, this led several of the actors to become quite protective over their characters, as Gelbart later explained.
“There was no way that any of our actors would allow any director to cause them to be unfaithful to the characters they portrayed,” wrote the producer. “While they obviously never truly became these characters, a good many of the roles began to take on the attributes of those who played them.”
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