The Cast of MASH Once Tried to Get Its Own Director Fired

TLDR: The 1970 film MASH came first, and its two biggest stars spent a real chunk of production trying to get the director removed from his own movie. He kept his job, the film won the top prize at Cannes, and one of its most famous elements was written by a 14-year-old in about five minutes.

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This isn’t the CBS sitcom that ran from 1972 to 1983. MASH premiered as a film on January 25, 1970, directed by Robert Altman and adapted by screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr. from Richard Hooker’s 1968 novel, and it’s what directly inspired the television series most fans know best.

You can read the full story of that later show and its cast in our piece on what M*A*S*H was really based on.

The film starred Donald Sutherland as Hawkeye Pierce and Elliott Gould as Trapper John McIntyre, made on a modest $3 million budget that went on to earn $81.6 million at the box office, a genuinely enormous return for the time.

More Than a Dozen Filmmakers Had Already Passed on the Project

Over a dozen other directors turned the novel down before Altman took it on, and the studio initially balked at the title itself, worried audiences might assume a film called MASH was somehow about potatoes.

Altman also deliberately stripped most explicit references to Korea from the script, hoping audiences would read the film’s satire as commentary on the Vietnam War still raging at the time of its release instead.

His Own Stars Tried to Get Him Fired Mid-Shoot

Sutherland and Gould grew convinced early in filming that Altman’s loose, overlapping directing style meant the production was spiraling out of control, and the two actors went to the studio together demanding he be removed.

The studio refused, and Altman later said in DVD commentary that the pair felt he wasn’t paying them enough attention as the film’s stars.

Gould eventually apologized directly once the finished film’s success became clear, telling Altman plainly, “I made a mistake,” and Altman cast him in several later projects as a result. Sutherland never appeared in another Altman film again.

A 14-Year-Old Wrote the Song Everyone Remembers

For the film’s now-famous theme, composer Johnny Mandel needed lyrics, and Altman gave his own attempt a try before deciding his “45-year-old brain” couldn’t write anything stupid enough for what he wanted. He handed the job to his 14-year-old son, Mike, who reportedly finished the lyrics in about five minutes.

The song went on to earn Mike Altman more than $1 million in royalties over the following years, ten times more than the $70,000 his father was paid to direct the entire film, a detail Robert Altman himself later shared on The Tonight Show.

An instrumental version of the same song became the television series’ opening theme for its full eleven-season run.

It Won Cannes’ Top Prize and Real Awards Recognition

MASH won the Palme d’Or, the top prize at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival, and went on to earn five Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Director, with Ring Lardner Jr. winning the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Sally Kellerman, who played Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan, received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for a role the eventual television series reshaped considerably for Loretta Swit’s version of the character.

Only One Actor Carried a Role From the Film Into the Show

Gary Burghoff, who played Radar O’Reilly, remains the only actor to originate a role in the film and then continue playing that same character on the television series, a detail that made his eventual 1979 exit from the show feel especially significant to longtime fans.

You can read more about that departure, and why he chose to leave, in our piece on Gary Burghoff.

MASH, Frequently Asked Questions