EXCLUSIVE: Alan Alda's 'Brutal' Final Days Revealed After His Terrifying Health And Mental Illness Battles
Alan Alda's final days are said to be filled with agony.
May 19 2025, Published 6:00 a.m. ET
Shocking new photos of Alan Alda have sparked fears the M*A*S*H legend is facing his last days after terrifying battles with mental illness and deadly medical problems, .
Sources who have seen the tragic 79-year-old star were shocked by his haggard appearance.
"I didn't realize it was Alan at first. It's so sad," our source said. "Time is taking a heavy toll on him."
Alda, left as a boy, endured a childhood of terror under the care of his mentally ill mother Joan.
Terrifying violence
Now, friends are urging Alda to update his 2005 memoir – and tell his entire story – before he takes his final curtain call.
"He’s finally ready to talk about so much more that happened in his life that he has kept buried," said a source.
"He has battled mental illness, paranoia and struggled with fame. He wants to tell how he has managed to come to grips with all the heartache and anger that has tormented him all his life."
Alda, who has two movies out this year – The Longest Ride in April, and Bridge of Spies in October – has been haunted by mental illness throughout life.
As a child, he had to survive terrifying violence from his beauty queen mother, Joan, a former Miss New York, who was plagued with murderous hallucinations triggered by her paranoid schizophrenia.
"She thought people were trying to kill her. She thought Alan was trying to kill her," said our source. “In order to survive, he had to watch her very carefully."
At age six, Alda watched in horror as his mother tried to stab his singer-actor dad, Robert, in a jealous rage.
As a boy, Alan shielded his father, Robert, from a knife-wielding Joan in a moment of horror.
"Joan suffered from furious fits of jealousy because his father worked with beautiful burlesque dancers," the source went on. "Alan cowered in terror when she picked up a knife and tried to plunge it into his dad's face.
"He thought he was going to lose his beloved dad. When Joan was disarmed, little Alan picked up the knife and plunged it into a wooden table, bending it so his mother couldn't use it as a weapon again."
Joan was also convinced their apartment was bugged and spies were listening to her every word, watching her every move.
"She would try to make her son doubt his own sanity with her hallucinations, cursing him for not seeing or hearing the imaginary folk who spoke to her constantly," the insider said.
"She lived in a fantasy world and tried to drag Alan down to the dark depths of depression and weird imagination she suffered."
Rise To Fame
Fame as Hawkeye on 'M*A*SH' pushed Alda into a spiral of paranoia and vivid night terrors.
Ironically, he had to battle his own mental demons at a high point in his life, when he shot to stardom as sarcastic Dr. Hawkeye Pierce in TV's hit sitcom M*A*S*H, which ran 11 seasons from 1972 to 1983.
"He struggled with fame and actually became unhinged for a while," another source said.
"Members of the public would grab him and it affected him so much he felt he was being hunted.
"He had night terrors where he'd see somebody in the room who wanted to strangle him. It was a hallucination but it seemed so real to him."
He also survived deadly polio as a small child and miraculously avoided being crippled by the savage disease.
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Alda's life was saved in Chile after emergency surgery during 'Scientific American Frontiers' filming.
In 2003, he nearly died from an intestinal blockage that struck while he was filming the public television show Scientific American Frontiers on a mountaintop in Chile.
A doctor in a rural village had to remove part of his intestines or he would've died.
Now, friends want Alan to reveal how he triumphed over so many tragedies, especially his childhood with his demented mom.
One told us: "Alan grew up deeply ashamed of having a mad mother – it was a subject that was taboo with him for many years.
"Now, pals are urging him to deal with it in depth, to get it off his mind once and for all. They want him to show that you can’t let the past rule your life."
