'M*A*S*H' star Alan Alda to get lifetime achievement award

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Alan Alda, the "M*A*S*H" TV star with a long career on stage and screen, will receive the annual lifetime achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild, the actor union said on Thursday.

Alda, 82, who announced in July that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, will receive the honour at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards dinner in Los Angeles on Jan. 27.

Alda is best-known for his role as wisecracking Hawkeye Pierce in the 1970s comedy series about life in a Korean war medical facility. Yet he also wrote and directed many of the episodes of the series, whose 1983 final episode was watched by some 105.9 million Americans.

Alda went on to appear in political television drama "The West Wing," as well as movies such as "California Suite," "Bridge of Spies" and "Manhattan Murder Mystery."

For many years, he was also host of television's "Scientific American Frontiers" before it ended in 2005.

"He is an artist whose body of work is a testament to the craft and the magic of our business. His ability to make us laugh, to think and to feel is extraordinary," SAG president Gabrielle Carteris said in a statement.

In July, Alda announced that he had been diagnosed with the nervous system disorder Parkinson's disease more than three years ago but that it has not stopped him from acting.

Alda will join the ranks of recent SAG lifetime honourees, Lily Tomlin, Debbie Reynolds, Carol Burnett, Betty White and Dick Van Dyke.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Alistair Bell)