I remember sitting on a plastic chair under the bright lights of a convention center in 2015.

The room was packed with fans wearing olive drab and surgical scrubs.

A young man in the third row stood up and asked a question I had heard a thousand times.

He wanted to know about the pranks on the set of MAS*H.

Usually, I give the standard answer about the time we put a mannequin in the shower.

But that day, looking at the sea of faces, I remembered something that still makes my ribs ache from laughing.

I leaned into the microphone and told them that you have to understand the environment we worked in.

We were in the middle of the Malibu mountains for hours on end.

It was often over a hundred degrees, and I was usually wearing a heavy, wool coat or a three-layer chiffon dress.

The heat does something to your brain after a while.

It makes you a little bit crazy, and it makes you look for any way to break the tension of the long hours.

On this particular day, we were filming a scene in the mess tent.

I had this massive monologue, probably three pages long.

It was one of those classic Klinger moments where I was trying to explain a new, convoluted scheme to get out of the Army.

I had spent all night memorizing the lines because I wanted to impress the directors.

I noticed Alan Alda and Mike Farrell whispering in the corner of the tent before the cameras started rolling.

They had that specific look in their eyes that usually meant someone was about to have a very bad day.

I tried to ignore it and focused on my performance.

I smoothed out my skirt, adjusted my hat, and waited for the director to call for silence.

The air in the tent was thick and still.

The crew was ready, the lights were blinding, and my co-stars were all in their positions around the table.

I took a deep breath, ready to deliver the performance of a lifetime.

The director yelled action, and I hit the ground running.

I was waving my arms, my voice was rising with just the right amount of desperation, and I was nailing every single syllable.

I started the first paragraph of the speech, looking directly at Alan, who was playing Hawkeye.

He nodded solemnly, totally in character, which gave me the confidence to keep going.

Then, I turned my head to address Mike Farrell, but when I looked over, his chair was empty.

I thought maybe he had a scripted exit that I had forgotten in my nerves, so I didn’t stop.

I turned back to Alan to keep the momentum going, but the chair where Alan had been sitting was now empty too.

I felt a slight chill despite the hundred-degree heat.

I kept talking, moving into the second page of the monologue, because as an actor, you never stop until you hear “cut.”

I looked toward the back of the tent where Harry Morgan and Loretta Swit were supposed to be sitting.

They were gone.

Not just moving out of the frame, but completely vanished from the set.

I was now standing in the middle of the mess tent, shouting my lines at a group of empty wooden chairs.

I glanced over at the camera operator, expecting him to be laughing, but even the camera was unattended.

The lens was pointed right at me, the red light was still on, but the man behind it had disappeared into thin air.

The silence of the mountains outside the tent was the only thing answering me.

I stood there for a full thirty seconds, still in my dress, holding a prop tray, looking like the loneliest soldier in Korea.

I finally shouted, “Is anyone still in the war, or did I win by default?”

Suddenly, from behind a large piece of canvas siding on the far end of the set, I heard a muffled snort.

Then came the explosion of laughter.

The entire cast, the camera crew, the lighting technicians, and the director all came tumbling out from behind the screen.

They had been piled on top of each other, trying to stay quiet while they watched me perform for nobody.

Alan was laughing so hard he had to lean against a tent pole to stay upright.

He told me that they had timed it perfectly so that each person would slip away the moment I turned my head to look at someone else.

It was a choreographed disappearing act that took more coordination than the actual scene we were filming.

They had even convinced the cameraman to lock the focus and sneak away on his hands and knees.

I was standing there, half-angry and half-impressed, while the director, Burt Metcalfe, wiped tears from his eyes.

He told me it was the best take I had ever done, which was a shame because we couldn’t use a single second of it.

We spent the next twenty minutes just trying to get our composure back.

Every time I would start the monologue again, I would look at Alan, and he would give me this tiny, mischievous wink.

That would start the whole cycle of laughter all over again.

That was the magic of that set; we were a family that knew how to push each other’s buttons just enough to keep the joy alive.

People always ask why the chemistry on MAS*H felt so real, and the answer is that we truly loved making each other laugh.

Even if it meant leaving me alone in a dress to talk to a room full of ghosts.

It taught me that in the middle of the hardest work, you have to be able to laugh at yourself.

If you can’t find the humor in a situation, you’re going to have a very long and very boring life.

I still think about that empty tent sometimes when I’m feeling a bit too serious.

It reminds me that the world keeps turning even when the audience walks away.

Do you have a favorite memory of Klinger that always makes you smile?