Sympathy for McLean

The recent death of Richard Dawson reminds me of the wry actor who eventually took over his front and center seat on Match Game.

McLean Stevenson is best known for the 1970s sitcom M*A*S*H, where he played the bemused Henry Blake. But Stevenson famously chafed at playing second banana to Alan Alda on the show and asked out. His acting career more or less dive-bombed afterwards, in a string of failed sitcoms.

He did find a home on Match Game, where he had already appeared as a guest panelist several times. He finally won the "Dawson seat" for the show's last year, and made it his own in an understated but witty way. He even took over as the show's host on a couple occasions, including one episode where violence erupted between Gene Rayburn and Charles Nelson Reilly.

A distant relative of politico Adlai Stevenson, McLean died of a heart attack in 1995 at age 68. Larry Gelbart, a writer on M*A*S*H, commented that Stevenson had left too soon twice in the same lifetime.