Actor Gary Burghoff said goodbye to M*A*S*H twice, revealing in a new TV special that he asked to reshoot his final scene as the hit CBS show’s Cpl. Walter “Radar” O’Reilly.
At the end of Season 8’s “Good-Bye Radar: Part 2,” which aired on October 15, 1979, the arrival of wounded interrupts Radar’s farewell party, meaning the character never gets a meaningful goodbye with friend Hawkeye (Alan Alda).
And Burghoff reflects on his departure from the show in the special M*A*S*H: The Comedy That Changed Television, airing Fox on Monday, January 1, at 8/7c.
“I said to myself, ‘What a wonderful moment, I can cry my eyes out, and I can do this wonderful dramatic moment, I can just completely fall apart,’” Burghoff says in an excerpt shared by Entertainment Weekly. “And the director said, ‘If I were you, I would fight the tears.’ And I said, ‘No, no. Just let me do it, OK?’”
But Burghoff soon realized the error of his ways. “The next day, in dailies, I look at the screen, and it’s awful. I mean, it is just terrible,” he says. “The director was right, I was wrong. … I turned to Burt [Metcalfe, executive producer]. ‘Please, can I do this again?’ And he said, ‘Yes, you may.’”
The actor, now 80, also discusses why he left M*A*S*H, saying it’s a question people have been asking him for 30 years. “My life at that time, it was a beautiful picture that was all crooked, and I had to step back, big time, in order to grow as a human being,” he said.
“Part of my stepping back, unfortunately, included M*A*S*H. I didn’t leave the show; my contract expired. You know, I had a seven-year contract. I just didn’t renegotiate because I was stepping back from everything.”
In a 2006 radio interview, Burghoff said that he was “not available” to his children while filming M*A*S*H, and that even when he wasn’t on set, his fame had an impact on his family life. “Family, to me, became the most important thing,” he explained at the time.
M*A*S*H: The Comedy That Changed Television, Monday, January 1, 8/7c, Fox
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