I was sitting in this small, dimly lit podcast studio a few years ago, and the host leaned in with that look they all get. It is that look of deep, scholarly interest in something fundamentally ridiculous. He asked me if there was ever a moment where the character of Maxwell Klinger felt like he was becoming a physical hazard. I had to laugh because people always forget that those costumes weren’t just jokes. They were layers of heavy fabric, corsets, and high heels, all being worn in the middle of a dusty ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains.

You have to picture the scene at the Fox Ranch in Malibu. On camera, it looked like the cold, desolate hills of Uijeongbu, but in reality, it was often a hundred degrees in the shade. We were all miserable, but I was the only one miserable in a floor-length chiffon gown and a pair of pumps that were two sizes too small.

We were filming a scene where Klinger had to make a desperate run from the mess tent across the compound to catch Colonel Potter before he drove off in a jeep. The writers had decided that for this particular episode, Klinger would be channeling his inner Scarlett O’Hara. I was wearing this massive, elaborate green velvet dress fashioned out of what looked like heavy window drapes, complete with a giant hoop skirt that had a mind of its own.

The director wanted the shot to be one long, continuous take. He wanted to see the sheer scale of the absurdity as I navigated the mud and the equipment. I remember Harry Morgan looking at me from the driver’s seat of the jeep, just shaking his head. He had this little glint in his eye, the kind that told you he was waiting for the disaster he knew was coming.

The sun was beating down, the dust was kicking up into my mascara, and the tension on the set was strangely high because we were losing light. Everyone was exhausted and ready to wrap, but the dress was proving to be a logistical nightmare. I stood there, sweating under layers of velvet, waiting for the cue.

I remember thinking that the hoop skirt was far too wide for the path we had cleared through the extras and the crates. I mentioned it to the crew, but they just told me to make it work. It was that classic MAS*H “can-do” attitude that usually resulted in someone getting bruised.

The assistant director called for quiet. The cameras started rolling. I took a deep breath, gathered up my skirts, and prepared to sprint. I could see Alan Alda and Mike Farrell standing off to the side, watching with this perverse sense of anticipation.

I started my run, and for the first ten feet, I actually felt graceful. I was moving like a deranged butterfly across the compound. But as I gained speed, the wind caught the hoop skirt. It started to lift, and I realized I had zero control over my lower half.

I was heading straight for a stack of supplies and a very surprised group of background actors.

And that’s when it happened.

The hoop skirt didn’t just snag; it staged a full-scale revolution. As I tried to pivot away from a stray crate of medical supplies, the metal wire inside the hem of the dress caught the edge of a heavy wooden bench. Because I was moving with such momentum, the dress didn’t tear immediately. Instead, the hoop acted like a spring-loaded trap.

It snapped upward with a sound like a gunshot, flipping the entire back half of the velvet gown over my head. One moment I was Scarlett O’Hara, and the next, I was just a man in hairy-legged glory, completely blinded by five yards of heavy green velvet draped over my face.

I couldn’t see a thing. I was still running, but I was running blind, fueled by the sheer terror of falling face-first into the Malibu dirt while wearing a corset. I went careening into the side of the mess tent, the fabric acting like a sail, pulling me backward until I did a slow-motion tumble into a pile of empty galvanized buckets.

The sound was deafening. It was a symphony of clanging metal and ripping velvet. For a second, there was this absolute, stunned silence across the entire ranch. You could have heard a pin drop, if that pin weren’t currently buried under a pile of Klinger’s petticoats.

Then, the dam broke.

It started with Harry Morgan. Harry was a professional, a veteran of the industry who had seen everything, but he let out a laugh that sounded like a tea kettle exploding. He was slumped over the steering wheel of the jeep, honking the horn accidentally because he was shaking so hard.

Then came the crew. The camera operator, a man who had survived some of the toughest shoots in Hollywood, actually had to let go of the camera. He stepped back, doubled over, gasping for air. The entire production just ground to a halt. There was no way we were getting another take.

Alan Alda was on the ground. Literally on the ground. He was pointing at me—or rather, pointing at the pile of velvet and buckets where I was currently struggling to find an exit—and he couldn’t even form words. He was just making these high-pitched wheezing sounds.

I finally managed to poke my head out from under the green drapes. My wig was lopsided, my fake eyelashes were hanging off like tired caterpillars, and I was covered in a fine layer of California dust. I looked at the director, who was trying to maintain some dignity, but even he had his face buried in his script, his shoulders heaving.

I just sat there in the dirt and said, “Does this mean I don’t get the discharge?”

That was the end of it. The crew had to stop filming for nearly forty minutes because every time someone looked at the green dress, they started up again. We were already behind schedule, but the joy that mistake brought to that exhausted, heat-stroked crew was worth every bit of the delay.

The wardrobe department had to come out and literally bolt me back into the dress with safety pins and gaffer tape because the internal structure of the hoop had been twisted into a pretzel. I spent the rest of the afternoon walking with a permanent list to the left, looking less like a Southern belle and more like a sinking ship.

Even hours later, during the quiet, serious scenes in the OR, I’d catch Mike Farrell’s eye, and he’d just start to smirk. We all knew that the “Scarlett O’Hara Incident” had become part of the show’s DNA. It was those moments of pure, unadulterated chaos that kept us sane.

We were making a show about the horrors of war, and sometimes the only way to balance that weight was to have a grown man fall into a pile of buckets while wearing a window treatment. It reminded us that we were a family, and families laugh when someone makes a fool of themselves.

I think about that day every time I see a rerun of that episode. You can see the slight wobble in the dress during the first part of the run, and if you look closely at Harry Morgan in the jeep, you can see his shoulders shaking before I even hit the buckets. He knew. He always knew.

People ask if I ever got tired of the dresses, and I tell them no. How could I? Those dresses gave me the best stories of my life. They were a badge of honor. Even the ones that tried to kill me in the Malibu sun.

It’s the absurdity that stays with you. We were trying to create something meaningful, something that said something about the human condition, but at the end of the day, we were also just a bunch of friends in the middle of nowhere, waiting for the next person to trip over their own hemline.

That’s the magic of MAS*H, really. It was the perfect blend of heart and a very heavy hoop skirt.

Do you have a favorite Klinger outfit that you think would have been a total disaster to actually wear?