“You know,” Harry said, leaning back in the plush armchair, his eyes twinkling in that unmistakable way that always signaled a story was coming. “I was talking to this young fella the other day. He’s a talented actor, just starting his career, and he was asking me about the ‘gravitas’ of playing a commanding officer. He really wanted to know how I maintained that stiff military bearing when the cameras were rolling, especially when I was surrounded by a cast as wild as the one we had on MAS*H.”

He chuckled, a dry, raspy sound that seemed to carry the echoes of a thousand memories from the 4077th. “I had to tell him that the ‘gravitas’ was mostly a matter of well-starched fatigues and a good script. People saw the eagles on my collar and they assumed I was the disciplinarian on the set, the elder statesman who kept everyone in line. But the truth was, I was often the one holding up production because I couldn’t keep my face straight.”

“There was this one particular afternoon out at the ranch in Malibu. It must have been ninety-eight degrees in the shade, and as anyone who worked on that show will tell you, we didn’t have much shade to go around. We were filming a scene in Potter’s office. It was supposed to be one of those classic ‘heart-to-heart’ moments. Very somber. Very serious. I think the plot involved a young soldier who had lost his nerve, and I had to deliver this stern but compassionate lecture about the nature of courage and duty.”

“We had been at it for hours. The lights inside that tent were like miniature suns, and the air was completely still. Every time we got close to a perfect take, something would intrude. A plane would fly over on its way to LAX, or a truck would backfire in the distance. You could feel the tension mounting. Our director was looking at his watch every thirty seconds, desperate to finish the shot before we lost the light.”

“Alan was sitting across from me, looking every bit as tired and dusty as I felt. We were both trying to stay in the character, trying to respect the weight of the scene. I felt this incredible pressure to be the anchor for the group, to be the seasoned pro who got us through the day so everyone could finally go home.”

“I straightened my posture, adjusted the map on my desk, and looked Alan dead in the eye. I took a deep breath, summoned every ounce of Colonel Potter’s authority, and prepared to deliver the emotional climax of the episode.”

“And that’s when it happened.”

“The line was simple enough. I was supposed to say something about the ‘burden of command’ and how it weighed on a man’s soul. But as I opened my mouth to speak, I made the mistake of catching a glimpse of Alan’s ear. Just his ear. And for some reason, in that oppressive heat and that state of total exhaustion, his ear looked like the funniest thing I had ever seen in my seventy-odd years on this planet.”

“I didn’t even get the first syllable out. Instead, I made this strange, high-pitched whistling sound through my nose. It sounded like a teakettle reaching a sudden boil. Alan’s eyes went wide. He’s a sharp one, Alan is. He knew immediately. He saw the tiny crack in the dam, and he knew it was about to burst.”

“I tried to recover. I really did. I cleared my throat, wiped my face with a handkerchief, and tried to look like a United States Army Colonel again. I apologized to the crew, told them I just had a bit of dust in the throat. We reset. The slate snapped. The director called for action.”

“I looked at Alan again. I managed to get out the word, ‘Son…’ and then I saw it. Just a tiny, microscopic twitch in his cheek. That was the end of it. I exploded. I didn’t just laugh; I folded. I literally hit the desk with my forehead, howling. The ‘serious’ Colonel Potter was vibrating so hard with suppressed laughter that the pens and the whiskey bottle on my desk were actually rattling.”

“Now, usually, when an actor breaks, the director yells cut and everyone groans because they have to reset the whole thing. But because it was me—the old veteran, the man who was supposed to be the professional—everyone else just lost their collective minds. Alan started braying like a mule. Mike Farrell, who was standing just off-camera waiting for his entrance, stumbled into the frame and collapsed against the tent pole, doubled over.”

“But the best part, the thing I’ll never forget, was the crew. These guys had been through the wringer all day. They were grumpy, they were covered in grit, and they were exhausted. When they saw me lose it, it was like a massive pressure valve had been popped. I looked up through my tears and saw our head cameraman. He was a big, burly guy, usually very stoic and focused. He was clutching the side of the heavy Panavision camera, and the entire rig was shaking visibly.”

“He couldn’t even keep the frame steady. He was laughing so hard he was crying. The boom operator had lowered the microphone until it was almost resting on my head because his arms had gone weak from laughing. It was total, beautiful, unscripted anarchy in the middle of a war zone.”

“The director finally gave up. He didn’t even try to call for order. He just sat back in his chair and started giggling along with us. We spent a good ten minutes just trying to remember how to breathe. Every time we thought we were finished, someone would make a little snorting sound, and the whole thing would start all over again. It was the most contagious thing I’ve ever experienced.”

“Eventually, we had to take a full fifteen-minute break. We walked out of the tent and stood in the dirt, just letting the evening air hit us. It completely changed the energy of the set. The grumpiness was gone. The exhaustion was still there, of course, but it didn’t feel like a burden anymore. It felt like we were all part of a shared secret.”

“We finally managed to get the take on the very next try. I don’t know how I did it, but I summoned some of that old-school military discipline for exactly forty-five seconds. But the funny thing is, whenever I happen to see that episode on television now, I don’t see the stern, commanding Colonel Potter. I see a man who was half a second away from falling off his chair because his friend’s ear looked a little bit too pointed in the Malibu sun.”

“That was the secret of our show, really. We took the subject matter seriously, but we never took ourselves too seriously. We had to laugh. If we hadn’t found those moments of absurdity, the heat and the long hours and the heavy scripts would have ground us down into nothing.”

“The crew never let me live it down, either. For weeks afterward, if I ever started getting a little too ‘theatrical’ or if I began acting like the elder statesman of the theater, one of the grips would just catch my eye, point to his own ear, and wink. It kept me humble. It kept me human.”

“I told that young actor that gravitas is all well and good for the screen, but if you can’t find the humor in the middle of the mess, you’re in the wrong business. You have to be able to break once in a while. It’s the breaking that lets the light in.”

“I still think about that cameraman sometimes, shaking that expensive piece of equipment because an old man couldn’t say the word ‘command’ without giggling. It’s one of my favorite memories from those eleven years.”

“The show was about a war, but the experience of making it was about a family. And you can’t have a real family without those moments where you absolutely lose your dignity in front of each other and realize that it’s the best thing that could have happened.”

It’s often the unplanned, messy moments that make the hardest days worth remembering.

Do you have a favorite memory of Colonel Potter that always manages to bring a smile to your face?