In a setting regularly filled with doctors and patients, expect the number of nurses to be plentiful. M*A*S*H installed many of them in various episodes, some with speaking parts, others stashed in the background, a backdrop of non-speaking roles. The presence of nurses made the show look real, but none of the nurses would stay long in unpromising roles.
Because the nurses never played vital roles, writers started to give them names from Ham operators and the military, from phonetic alphabets, like Nurse Charlie. Actress Kellye Nakahar was frequently credited for her role as Nurse Kellye. She was also Nurse Able. Since she stuck longer than most, she eventually even had a speaking part in Season 11.
Tension On Set
During the early stages of M*A*S*H, everyone was encouraged to have a say on how the series progressed. In a way, they went the direction of many-heads-are-better-than-one. Until, that is, the writers got fed up with all the tedious letters and notes they received from the cast.
The writers thought of ways to get back at the actors. Evidently, there was a growing division among them, and they wrote too many unnecessary details in their scripts. Everyone from both sides was now bent on making each other’s life difficult. This was stopped after one of the actors had to wear heavy parkas in a tropical scene, on a hot summer day in Malibu. McLean Stevenson got tired of the antics and left the show. Thankfully, things started simmering down after that.
Captain “Trapper”
Wayne Rogers, who played Captain “Trapper” John McIntyre, was one of those fan favorites in the M*A*S*H TV series. He was certainly important, with the business aspect of things considered, for being a factor for sales pull. However, legal trouble loomed when he declared that he intended to quit the show.
Management quickly threatened to sue for breach of contract, and they probably would have succeeded, except for one tiny hiccup: it turns out Rogers hadn’t signed a contract with them in the first place. He had originally been approached to play Hawkeye Pierce but wasn’t keen on how cynical the character was. He was offered the role of Trapper instead, but never actually put pen to paper. While the pair were supposed to have equally important roles, Rogers became increasingly bothered by the gradual increase in importance Alda’s character was given by the writers. In the end, he felt the integrity of the book the series was inspired by had been compromised and, with no contract pinning him down, was able to easily bow out of his role.
Not Exactly Historically Accurate
The TV series was based on real events largely drawn during the Korean War, and it was made to look as authentic as possible. In many ways, it was successful at this, but a closer look around the set would gradually reveal a bric-a-brac of inconsistencies.
Like, say, why would an army officer be loafing around the base in a pair of sneakers? Of course, these were shot at an angle to hide the fact. Actors liked to wear sneakers because of their comfort. They didn’t wear real soldier boots because it would be too loud around the set which, by the way, had aluminum cans, a pinball machine in the officer’s club; and a whole host of things that weren’t actually available during the depicted period.
McLean Stevenson's Grim Departure
While the writers of M*A*S*H were banging their heads to come up with a consistent creative stream, life up and got stranger than fiction. After McLean Stevenson grew tired of the political power-play between the writers and the cast, he decided to leave and try his luck elsewhere.
He wasn’t so fortunate after M*A*S*H though and eventually passed away in 1996 due to a heart attack. Meanwhile, Roger Bowen, who appeared in M*A*S*H back in 1970, also died that same year of the same ailment. In an extra eerie coincidence, they both died within a day of each other.