So that's it. I've told you everything I know. Think clearly and think for yourself. Learn to use language to express those thoughts. Love somebody with all your heart. And with everyone, whether you love them or not, find out if you can be helpful. But really, it's even simpler than that. After all this time, and all these talks in public and in private, I think I get it now. If I were taking my friend Arnold's suggestion and spoke from my deathbed, I think I know what I'd say. I see now that I had my meaning all along, I just had to notice it. The meaning of life... is life. Not noticing life is what's meaningless, even down to the last second.

After the release of the movie Tower Heist Alda was devastated when on December 7 2011 he lost his idol and decades-long friend Harry Morgan who played opposite Alda as Colonel Sherman T. He appears briefly in Don De Lillo's novel Underworld as a high school student in 1951 who wants his friends to stop calling him Alphonso and start calling him Alan because he's going to be a movie star. A.

A six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner he is best known for his starring roles as Hawkeye Pierce in the TV series M*A*S*H and Arnold Vinick in The West Wing and his supporting role in the 2004 film The Aviator for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo (born January 28 1936) better known as Alan Alda is an American actor director screenwriter and author.