Goodbye Ferret-face

by Tim Wick

Frank Burns is a lipless wonder.
- Hot Lips Hullihan, M*A*S*H

I will never forget how Hot Lips Hullihan described Major Frank Burns when she was drunk. "Frank Burns" she told us "is a lipless wonder".

I'm not sure why it is that line that I thought of right away when I saw the news that Larry Linville had just passed away. I loved M*A*S*H when it was on and I hated Frank Burns. Of course I was supposed to. His by the book doctor whose incompetence and stupidity was the perfect foil for Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper was out of place in the later years of the show (which is probably why he left). But in the early years, before the show became more serious in tone, he was one of the great comic straight men. Like JR on Dallas, he was the man you loved to hate. You couldn't wait to see what new torture Hawkeye had dreamed up for Frank that week. No matter how mean the prank was, Frank would do something that would convince you he deserved it.

Linville is best remembered for his role on M*A*S*H, but he did appear in several movies a TV series before and after his tenure on the show. Because this is a science-fiction club, I will highlight his appearance in Earth Girls are Easy and Misfits of Science as the most fitting examples of his work outside the most popular sitcom in the history of Television. A quick check of the IMDB shows the rest of his work - none of which I can admit to seeing.

But Linville did seem typecast after M*A*S*H. He did such a perfect job portraying his character that it seemed impossible to imagine him playing anything else. He was not the first actor to suffer from such a fate and he will certainly not be the last.

So why write an obituary for a man with almost no ties to Science Fiction? Because you don't have to be a sci-fi fan to remember M*A*S*H. I don't think there is a person in my age group who didn't watch the finale of that show. If there is, they don't admit it because they know how the rest of us would react (not well).

The show outgrew Frank Burns when it became a more serious impeachment of war and the men and women who lost sight of the human aspect of war. But Linville was one of the people that made the show popular enough to make that transition. So I salute the "lipless wonder" and honor his passing here.

Mr. Linville died of complications from pneumonia on Monday, April 10th.