David Ogden Stiers

Sad to hear he passed away from cancer just a few days ago.

David was very notorious for his signing habits. I remember there was an Autograph Magazine back in 1998 that covered the MASH autographs. They had no problem saying that David was a very tough signer. Most of the time he declined to autograph things for people. It amazes me that there is some things on ebay, but I just wonder how much of that is actually authentic? In addition, I really doubt most of those MASH cast signed photos that you find for sale many places are signed by him.

After years of trying (to be more precise, I stopped trying to get him when I first started in 1995-96 and started again in 2013), I did get David's autograph. In fact, he sent it to me along with a thank you card - a real rarity because you don't hear of those type of things coming from him. While I feel I am in a very small minority of people who had this experience, has anyone else here ever gotten his autograph?

I don't quite understand his reasoning for why he refused to autograph for many people, but I guess he had some valid reasons that made sense.

Tags: David, MASH, Ogden, Stiers

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Permalink Reply by Trevor Song on March 29, 2018 at 6:38pm

I think you will have a better chance to find an authentic DOS autograph on a solo photograph of him rather than a group cast member photo. The thing you have to keep in mind is with his signature, I would be VERY cautious of trying to obtain any all cast member signed photo/item from everyone. I am under the assumption that because of his signing habits, he did not sign many of those. So if you see ones that are absent with his signature and probably Alan Alda's (however, I do hear he does sign IF you send to his office with a photograph for him to do it on), then I would bet they are very likely authentic. It's just a shame that DOS was very reluctant to sign for all the fans - and according to where you may look, sometimes he didn't have nice things to say about autograph seekers too.