Actor Alda recovers after surgery

Alda is best known for his role in M*A*S*H

Actor Alan Alda is recovering in hospital after falling ill while filming a TV documentary in Chile.

Alda, 67, who starred in the hit US TV comedy M*A*S*H, had emergency surgery for an intestinal obstruction.

He was recovering at the San Juan de Dios Hospital in La Serena, 290 miles north of the Chilean capital Santiago.

Alda, who hosts Scientific American Frontiers on US TV, was working on an astronomy documentary being filmed on location at a telescope in the Andes.

Hospital director Julio Rojas said Alda, who was admitted on Monday, had asked for no visitors and was expecting his wife to arrive later.

Alda is best known for his Emmy Award-winning role as Capt Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, the insubordinate army doctor on M*A*S*H.

The show ran for 11 years in the 1970s and early 1980s.

He went on to appear in numerous TV and film projects, including three Woody Allen films - Crimes and Misdemeanours, Manhattan Murder Mystery and Everyone Says I Love You.

He recently appeared in medical drama ER as a prominent physician in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, and returned to Broadway last year as a physicist in the one-man play QED.