1981 was a big year for Alan Alda. He was nearing the peak of an incredible run on the hit TV show M*A*S*H, having earned Emmy Awards for writing, acting, and directing. And his directorial film debut, The Four Seasons, was a commercial and critical success.
Alda, a 1956 Fordham graduate, wrote and starred in the romantic comedy alongside Carol Burnett as one of three middle-age couples who take quarterly vacations together.
Tina Fey was 11 years old when the movie came out, and it made a strong impression. More than 40 years later, the award-winning actress, comedian, and producer was inspired to reboot the film as a Netflix series.
“One of the things I loved about [the original movie] was it was all these people that I love from my other favorite things, all in one thing,” she said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. “And I was like, ‘Oooh, could I round up a group of people like that?’ And I was lucky enough to succeed.”
The reboot, which stars Fey, Steve Carell, Will Forte, Colman Domingo, and Kerri Kenney-Silver, was not only blessed by Alda but also features him in a second-episode cameo. Fey wrote a new role for him. He plays the father of Kenney-Silver’s character and provides some wisdom and surprising advice to a couple of characters facing marital challenges.
“It was wonderful, to even have his blessing to do this was so wonderful, and of course he’s still got it, still so funny, so handsome—we had a wonderful day with him,” Fey said.
The 89-year-old Alda, who disclosed publicly in 2018 that he has Parkinson’s disease, congratulated Fey at a special screening of the original movie in New York City last month and in a video.
“Tina, I knew you’d take The Four Seasons movie that I wrote and directed all those years ago and do something wonderful with it and you have,” he said, adding that he’d love to have her come on Clear + Vivid with Alan Alda, his long-running podcast about connecting and communicating “We can tell each other how great we are.”
