Alan Alda Reveals He Has Parkinson’s Disease

Alan Alda has revealed for the first time that he’s battling Parkinson’s disease.

“I’ve had a full life since [my diagnosis],” he said on CBS This Morning. “I’ve acted, I’ve given talks, I help at the Alda Center for Communicating Science… It hasn’t stopped my life at all. I’ve had a richer life than I’ve had up until now.”

The said he’s coming out publicly because recently he began to notice that his thumb was twitching in recent television interviews and figured it was only a matter of time before fans began to speculate. His worry started manifesting in dreams: “I was having a dream that someone was attacking me and I threw a sack of potatoes at him but what I was really doing was throwing a pillow at my wife.”

He added he hadn’t experienced any symptoms until months later, when his thumb started twitching. “I said, ‘I want to know if there’s anything I can do. I want to do it before things start to show up,’” he said. “You still have things you can do. I’m taking boxing lessons three times a week. I do singles tennis a couple of times a week.”

Alan Alda