Hiester Richard Hornberger Jr. (February 1, 1924 – November 4, 1997) was an American writer and surgeon who wrote under the pseudonym Richard Hooker. Hornberger's best-known work is his novel ''
MASH'' (1968), based on his experiences as a wartime
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
surgeon
In modern medicine, a surgeon is a medical professional who performs surgery. Although there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon usually is also a licensed physician or received the same medical training as ...
doctor
Doctor or The Doctor may refer to:
Personal titles
* Doctor (title), the holder of an accredited academic degree
* A medical practitioner, including:
** Physician
** Surgeon
** Dentist
** Veterinary physician
** Optometrist
*Other roles
** ...
during the
Korean War
, date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
(1950–1953) and written in collaboration with
W. C. Heinz
Wilfred Charles Heinz (January 11, 1915February 27, 2008) was an American sportswriter, war correspondent, journalist, and author.
Newspaper and magazine career
Heinz was born in Mount Vernon, New York. Following his graduation from Middlebury C ...
. It was used as the basis for an award-winning, critically and commercially successful movie –
''M*A*S*H'' (1970) — and two years later in an acclaimed long running
television series
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite television, satellite, or cable television, cable, excluding breaking news, television adverti ...
(1972–1983) of the same title.
Early life and education
Born in
Trenton, New Jersey
Trenton is the capital city of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County. It was the capital of the United States from November 1 to December 24, 1784.[Peddie School
The Peddie School is a college preparatory school in Hightstown, in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is a non-denominational, coeducational boarding school located on a campus, and serves students in the ninth through twelfth gr ...]
in
Hightstown
Hightstown is a borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough's population was 5,494,[Bowdoin College
Bowdoin College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine. When Bowdoin was chartered in 1794, Maine was still a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The college offers 34 majors and 36 minors, as well as several joint eng ...]
in
Brunswick, Maine
Brunswick is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. The population was 21,756 at the 2020 United States Census. Part of the Portland-South Portland-Biddeford metropolitan area, Brunswick is home to Bowdoin College, the Bowdoin Intern ...
, where he was an active member of the
Beta Theta Pi
Beta Theta Pi (), commonly known as Beta, is a North American social fraternity that was founded in 1839 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. One of North America's oldest fraternities, as of 2022 it consists of 144 active chapters in the Unite ...
fraternity. He went to
Cornell Medical School
The Joan & Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University is Cornell University's biomedical research unit and medical school located in Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York.
Weill Cornell Medicine is affiliated with N ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.
Military experience
After graduating from medical school, he was
drafted into the
Korean War
, date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
and assigned to the 8055
Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (M.A.S.H.). M.A.S.H. units, according to one doctor assigned to the unit, "weren't on the front lines, but they were close. They lived and worked in tents. It was hot in the summer and colder than cold in the winter." The operating room consisted of stretchers balanced on
carpenter's sawhorse
In woodworking, a saw-horse or sawhorse (saw-buck, trestle, buck) is a trestle structure used to support a board or plank for sawing. A pair of sawhorses can support a plank, forming a scaffold. In certain circles, it is also known as a ''m ...
s.
Many of the M.A.S.H. doctors were in their twenties, with few having advanced surgical training.
During battle campaigns, units could see "as many as 1,000 casualties a day". "What characterized the fighting in Korea", one of Hornberger's fellow officers recalled, "was that you would have a period of a week or ten days when nothing much was happening, then there would be a push. When you had a push, there would suddenly be a mass of casualties that would just overwhelm us."
There were, another surgeon recalled, "'long periods when not much of anything happened' in an atmosphere of apparent safety—plenty of time to play ... When things were quiet we would sit around and read. Sometimes the nurses would have a little dance."
Hornberger's later assessment of his unit's behavior was: "A few flipped their lids, but most just raised hell in a variety of ways and degrees."
A colleague described Hornberger as "a very good surgeon with a tremendous sense of humor." Although Hornberger did label his tent "The Swamp" (as do the characters in the novel), he was politically conservative.
Private practice and writing career
After the war, Hornberger worked for the
U.S. Veterans Administration, qualified for his surgical boards, and went into private practice in
Waterville, Maine
Waterville is a city in Kennebec County, Maine, Kennebec County, Maine, United States, on the west bank of the Kennebec River. The city is home to Colby College and Thomas College. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census the populatio ...
. Eventually, he settled into practice at Broad Cove in
Bremen, Maine
Bremen ( ) is a small town in Lincoln County, Maine, United States. The population was 823 at the 2020 census. Located on Muscongus Bay and the Gulf of Maine, it includes the villages of Broad Cove, Turners Corner, Bremen, Medomak and Muscongu ...
.
His experiences at the 8055th M.A.S.H. were the background for his novel ''
MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors'' (1968), which he worked on for eleven years. In 1956, he began attempting to put his memories into a book. In the 1960s, a visit with a former M.A.S.H. colleague and his wife — a nurse at the unit — led to a session of drinking and storytelling.
Hornberger later claimed the evening gave him new motivation to finish his manuscript.
''MASH'' was rejected by many publishers. He worked with the famed sportswriter
W. C. Heinz
Wilfred Charles Heinz (January 11, 1915February 27, 2008) was an American sportswriter, war correspondent, journalist, and author.
Newspaper and magazine career
Heinz was born in Mount Vernon, New York. Following his graduation from Middlebury C ...
to revise it. A year later, the book was acquired by
William Morrow and Company
William Morrow and Company is an American publishing company founded by William Morrow in 1926. The company was acquired by Scott Foresman in 1967, sold to Hearst Corporation in 1981, and sold to News Corporation
News Corporation (abbrev ...
. Published under Hornberger's pseudonym, Richard Hooker, the novel was highly successful.
''MASH'' adaptations
''MASH'' was adapted as a
film by the same name, directed by
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman ( ; February 20, 1925 – November 20, 2006) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was a five-time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director and is considered an enduring figure from the New H ...
and released in 1970. It was nominated for five
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
s and won for
Best Adapted Screenplay. According to writer
John Baxter, Hornberger "was so furious at having sold the film rights for only a few hundred dollars that he never again signed a copy of the book."
A
TV series
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed betw ...
was developed, that debuted in 1972 and ran for eleven seasons with great popularity. Hornberger reportedly did not like
Alan Alda
Alan Alda (; born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo; January 28, 1936) is an American actor, screenwriter, and director. A six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner, he is best known for playing Captain Benjamin "Hawkeye" Pierce in the war co ...
's portrayal of Hawkeye in the TV series, favoring the Robert Altman film, in which Pierce was played by
Donald Sutherland
Donald McNichol Sutherland (born 17 July 1935) is a Canadian actor whose film career spans over six decades. He has been nominated for nine Golden Globe Awards, winning two for his performances in the television films ''Citizen X'' (1995) an ...
.
''MASH'' sequels
Hornberger wrote the sequels to ''MASH'' — ''
M*A*S*H Goes to Maine'' (1972) and ''
M*A*S*H Mania'' (1977) — neither of which enjoyed the commercial success of the original. While ''MASH'' was a fairly faithful reflection of Hornberger's service in Korea, his sequels were diverse representations of the "Swamp Gang's" post-Korea activities in the fictional town of Spruce Harbor, Maine, from 1953 to the 1970s. Attempts to adapt ''M*A*S*H Goes to Maine'' into a film met with failure.
The sequels are characterized by gentle humour, stereotypical local characters, and a nostalgic look at Maine and its people through Hornberger's eyes. Throughout, the "Swamp Gang" prospers, gets its own way most of the time, and generally becomes more conservative as the years pass. The men play golf and are sometimes thorns in the side of "the summer complaints" (tourists) and local bigwigs.
A series of novels based on the franchise was published in between ''M*A*S*H Goes to Maine'' and ''M*A*S*H Mania'' in which the characters travel to various locations, including Moscow, New Orleans, San Francisco, and Paris. The books were credited to "Richard Hooker and
William E. Butterworth", although they were written entirely by Butterworth. They were hastily written to capitalize on the TV show's popularity and were of dubious literary merit. The action was transposed to the 1970s so that people such as
Henry Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
could be lampooned, but this would have made some of the characters quite old, if the descriptions in the first book were to be believed. For instance,
Hot Lips would have been in her 60s, having been described as "fortyish" in the first novel.
[Obituary, ''Times'', 7 November 1997.]
Later life and death
After the success of his book and its screen adaptations, Hornberger continued to practice as a surgeon in Waterville until his retirement in 1988. During the later years of his practice, Hornberger indulged in medical research and published his research in peer-reviewed medical journals.
He died at the age of 73 on November 4, 1997, of
leukemia
Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ' ...
.
Published works
# ''
MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors'' (1968)
# ''
M*A*S*H Goes to Maine'' (Jun 1971)
# ''M*A*S*H Goes to New Orleans'' (with William E Butterworth) (Jan 1975)
# ''M*A*S*H Goes to Paris'' (with William E Butterworth) (Jan 1975)
# ''M*A*S*H Goes to London'' (with William E Butterworth) (June 1975)
# ''M*A*S*H Goes to Morocco'' (with William E Butterworth) (Jan 1976)
# ''M*A*S*H Goes to Las Vegas'' (with William E Butterworth) (Jan 1976)
# ''M*A*S*H Goes to Hollywood'' (with William E Butterworth) (April 1976)
# ''M*A*S*H Goes to Miami'' (with William E Butterworth) (Sep 1976)
# ''M*A*S*H Goes to San Francisco'' (with William E Butterworth) (Nov 1976)
# ''M*A*S*H Goes to Vienna'' (with William E Butterworth) (June 1976)
# ''M*A*S*H Goes to Montreal'' (with William E Butterworth) (1977)
# ''M*A*S*H Goes to Texas'' (with William E Butterworth) (Feb 1977)
# ''M*A*S*H Goes to Moscow'' (with William E Butterworth) (Sep 1977)
# ''
M*A*S*H Mania'' (1977)
References
External links
"H. Richard Hornberger, 73, Surgeon Behind 'M*A*S*H'" ''The New York Times'', November 7, 1997
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hornberger, Richard
1924 births
1997 deaths
20th-century American novelists
American male novelists
United States Army personnel of the Korean War
United States Army Medical Corps officers
Bowdoin College alumni
Weill Cornell Medical College alumni
Deaths from cancer in Maine
Deaths from leukemia
M*A*S*H
Peddie School alumni
People from Waterville, Maine
Writers from Trenton, New Jersey
People from Bremen, Maine
20th-century American male writers
Novelists from New Jersey