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Winchester, Charles Emerson III
Winchester, Charles Emerson III
Winchester, Charles Emerson III
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Contents
About Charles
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a very wealthy family of Boston "bluebloods", The somewhat snobbish Charles, After completing his secondary studies at Choate, he graduated Summa Cum Laude from Harvard Medical School in Boston, and came to work at Boston General Hospital. Before he was drafted to join the US Army at the start of the Korean War, he was on track to become Chief of Thoracic Surgery.
David Ogden Stiers as Charles Winchester III on
Charles has a sister named Honoria (pronounced ah-NOR-ee-uh) with a speech impediment (stuttering) and a brother Timmy who had died when Charles was very young. He also had a nephew who was leaving the service just after he came to MASH 4077-although his sister is shown in a later episode to be unmarried and has no children. In his will, Charles asks that his butterfly collection not be left to cousin Alfred; likewise Alfred is not to receive his shares of voting stock. Despite his disdain for the military and his wish to be at Boston General hospital he is not adverse to Colonel Flagg's attempted bribe for Winchester to working at Fort Devan's Military Hospital at Boston-if Winchester will spy for Flagg! Although before coming to MASH 4077 he was stationed at Tokyo General Hospital one goof shows him wearing a arrowhead device on his military ribbons (this only for combat duty service). Although he constantly moans about leaving Boston, he also cares very much for Tokyo, octopus and kabuki theater-although he can't speak Japanese. As presented in the series, he is tall, stocky, and losing his hair. Similar to Major Burns - who he replaced - he also has a bad back and is a Presbyterian.
Home Rank
M*A*S*H character
Vital information Major (O-4), U.S. Army Reserve New ranking "Swamp" Job/Role in unit: surgeon at the 4077th M*A*S*H Same as birthplace Sandy Red Hazel 6'4" 235 lbs.
Family/Personal Information Born: Birthplace: Nationality/Race: Spouse: 1922 (?) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Once Winchester arrives, he finds the conditions repugnant compared to the comfortable Tokyo General. Although his arrogance makes a poor first impression, Winchester proves he is an excellent surgeon when he performs a delicate heart operation on a ventricular aneurysm he is experienced in, but that the other doctors are unfamiliar with. However, he learns that his methodical surgery is unsuited to the gross amount of patients he has to operate on, and the length of his shifts into the early morning, he is forced to learn "meatball surgery". He made an effective transition, though, even criticizing other surgeons if they operated slowly. Soon after Winchester's arrival, the camp learns that Maj. Burns has been arrested after mistaking another woman for his former lover, Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan. The camp, but not Winchester, further learns that Maj. Burns has been transferred back to the United States following a psychiatric evaluation. The doctors and Radar toast to Frank, "Good-bye Ferret face." Col. Potter catches Charles just as he is about to leave to return to Tokyo, and informs him that he will be assigned to the 4077th indefinitely. Charles is shocked and at first refuses, but Col. Potter threatens disciplinary action. Charles, very reluctantly, agrees to cooperate and moves into Maj. Burns' former quarters with Pierce and Hunnicutt.
Series/Film appeared in: Played by: First appeared in:
Honoria (sister) Relatives/Children: Unnamed father Unnamed mother Appearances "Fade Out, Fade In (Part 1)" (Season 6) "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" (Series finale, film) M*A*S*H TV series David Ogden Stiers
When the first major rush of wounded arrive, Winchester finds himself in over his head once he begins operating, taking three or four times as long to finish his operations as his fellow surgeons: Captain Hawkeye Pierce, Captain B.J. Hunnicutt, and Col. Potter in a medical situation where life saving operations must be performed as rapidly as possible. Winchester, his ego fully inflated, feels humiliated at any assistance to improve his efficiency and alienates himself from the rest of the camp with his arrogant, selfcentered and at times cold persona. He does, however, prove to have a sense of humor and a clever wit which is not above pranks. Just as B.J. Hunnicut was supposed to be a substitute for Trapper John, Winchester was supposed to be a substitute for Major Burns-as a drunken Hawkeye remarks there is only a hair breath difference between them {i.e exchanging a amoral slob of a fair but barely competent surgeon for a moral snob of a brilliant but uncaring surgeon}. Although Winchester appears arrogant and uncaring around Hawkeye and B.J., in his heart he does care about his patients. He seems to be too embarrassed to show his more caring side to Hawkeye and B.J., instead wanting them to believe that he is unfeeling, and "above it all" to protect himself from the difficulty that may arise, emotionally, from getting too close to his tent mates. Winchester's caring attitude is concealed from Hawkeye and B.J., for example, they know nothing of the agony Winchester goes through, when he discovers that one of his patients, whose leg he surgically corrected magnificently, but whose hand he could not fix, was a concert pianist who could therefore no longer play because of his permanently damaged right hand. Winchester does all he can to convince the young man that his gift for piano playing can be manifested not just in playing piano pieces for the left hand alone, but also by teaching in the classroom, or by writing. This gives the young soldier hope for the future. Winchester is, in his heart, a deeply sensitive person, who perhaps does not want this exposed, for fear of appearing weak or vulnerable. For example, when Hawkeye's schoolteacher friend from home, has her schoolchildren send them letters, Winchester uses his tape recorder to send a message to a boy asking how he can be more "grown up". Winchester, mischievously, tells him to take his father's best suit, and have the tailor fit him with it. This is heard by B.J. Also, B.J reads a letter from a rather uninformed boy, who says that he's jealous of the doctors, since he they "get to eat real army food, and camp out." Winchester grabs the letter from B.J, and writes a letter to him, and out loud, for B.J. to hear, writes to
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the boy that his "misinformation is exceeded only by his atrocious grammar"! But later, when Winchester receives a letter that touches his heart, from a girl who sends him a leaf from a birch tree, Winchester decides to write her, rather than use his tape recorder, so that B.J. won't hear him. In the letter, he genuinely thanks the girl for her gift. B.J., Hawkeye, and Col. Potter, never get to see Winchester's softer side, because he conceals it, to protect himself emotionally.
Sense of humor
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In contrast to his normally posh tastes, Charles enjoyed occasional Tom and Jerry cartoons, Three Stooges shorts (which he regarded as surrealistic), "Captain Marvel" comics and canned sardines. Furthermore, he has engaged in a few pranks, including one episode where Colonel Flagg visited the camp and Charles planted 'evidence' to lead him on a wild goose chase, wherein Flagg became convinced that conspirators were meeting in the guise of a poker game. The 'conspirators' included Hawkeye, Colonel Potter, the Mayor of Uijeongbu, and the Chief of Police, who were not amused at Flagg's accusations. When Hawkeye questioned Charles, Charles demurely stated that he wasn't the type to pull pranks, unless it was good for a laugh. He also once used a toy hand grenade to clear out the officer's club so he, Hawkeye, B.J., Klinger and Soon Lee could get a table (but we only see him tossing the hand grenade into the air). Several times Charles and B.J. actually teamed up together-once to get even on Sgt Rizzo who tricked B.J. into running out of a shower; once by tricking a over-talkative annuity salesman into being quiet-until he leaves MASH 4077; and once to get rid of a visiting MASH 8063rd surgeon who is more obnoxious than Hawkeye (he refers to B.J. by the wrong initials and thinks Winchester graduated from Yale!). Once Winchester tried to give both Pierce and B.J. a warning that Boston would ban Pinocchio when both Pierce and B.J. think they going to see a sexy movie "The Moon is Blue" after the film is banned in Boston. He was seen as a comic foil example when he took the Dodgers not blowing the 13 1/2 game lead during the 1951 season just to fall on his face during the three-game playoff, when Bobby Thomson's home run won the final game. (At the time, the Dodgers were a Brooklyn New York City baseball team much beloved of working-class people; a Boston blue-blood at that time would probably have preferred to support the Boston Braves.) This is quite a goof-Winchester didn't arrive at MASH 4077 until the middle of 1952!}
Finale
In the series finale, "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen", Winchester encounters a group of five Chinese P.O.W.s who are decent musicians and share his love of music. They are being held at the 4077th and, as they are playing traditional music, Winchester furiously confronts them, explaining that he is trying to listen to Mozart on his phonograph. They then begin to play a crude rendition of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet In A , K 581 - 1st Mvt. Allegro. Winchester, delighted at the idea of being able to spend time with anyone who loves classics, begins spending considerable time trying to improve upon their performance. However, Charles learns that the musicians have to be transferred in a prisoner of war exchange with the Chinese Red Army along with the rest of the captives at the 4077th. Charles pleads for them to stay, but the military officer coordinating the effort refuses to allow it. The musicians play the piece of Mozart that Charles had taught them as they are driven away. Charles, coming out after surgery several hours later, triages one final patient from a prisoner truck accident in grave condition. He begins examining the wounds, but then recoils in horror when he sees that the patient is one of the Chinese musicians that had been swapped in the P.O.W. exchange. Charles asks the corpsman if any other prisoners had survived, but the corpsman informs Charles that the dying musician is "the only one that made it this far." Charles sadly and bitterly remarks that the dying man was not a soldier, but a musician. Retreating to his tent Charles attempts to find solace in a record of "Clarinet Quintet in A" but after only a few moments of listening to the song he wordlessly yanks the record off the phonograph and smashes it. The armistice to end the Korean War is signed soon after and at the 4077's last supper, Charles announces: "I will be head of Thoracic Surgery at Boston Mercy Hospital, so my life will go on pretty much as I expectedwith one exception. For me, music has always been a refuge from this miserable experience... now it will always be a reminder." With the 4077th packing up and the personnel moving out to return home, Charles leaves the camp with Sgt. Rizzo in the last remaining vehicle: a garbage truck. When Rizzo pulls up in the truck, he says "I hope you don't mind riding in a garbage truck, 'cause it's the last vehicle I got.", to which Winchester replies "Not at all. What better way to leave a garbage dump!" It is fitting that Charles leaves his friends with the trademark phrase "Gentlemen," that still shows his class and upbringing.
Quotes
"Know this. You can cut me off from the civilized world. You can incarcerate me with two moronic cellmates. You can torture me with your thrice daily swill, but you cannot break the spirit of a Winchester. My voice shall be heard from this wilderness and I shall be delivered from this fetid and festering sewer!" "I've groveled! I have endured your insufferable cribbage playing! I have kissed your brass! But I WILL NOT, even for a return to that pearl of the orient Tokyo, lie to protect you while destroying a friend's career!" "I do one thing at a time. I do it very well. And then I move on." [Season 6, Episode 1, "Fade in, Fade out"] To Klinger's court martial board: "If you, in your wisdom, do not agree [that Klinger is innocent]... think of me!... Five generations of Winchesters haven't lost an argument, much less, a trial. If you send this man to the stockade, it will be an injustice, albeit a minor one. But the damage to my reputation will be a tragedy of EPIC proportions!" To Colonel Flagg: "One you can't buy me and Two..WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?" To Colonel Flagg: "For a man with no sense of humor you are awfully funny.". To Congressional aide Williamson: "THERE IS NO LIFE AFTER BOSTON" "Each man must dance to his own tune." [Season 8, Episode 19] "Dont you see? Your hand may be stilled, but your gift cannot be silenced if you refuse to let it be... The gift does not lie in your hands. I have hands, David. Hands that can make a scalpel sing. More than anything in my life I wanted to play, but I do not have the gift. I can play the notes, but I cannot make the music. You have performed Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Chopin. Even if you never do so again, youve already known a joy that I will never know as long as I live. Because the true gift is in your head and in your heart and in your soul. Now you can shut it off forever, or you can find new ways to share your gift with the world--through the baton, the classroom, or the pen. As to these works, theyre for you, because you and the piano will always be as one." ["Morale Victory", Season 8, Episode 19] To Captain Sweeney, CO of the stuttering Private Palmer in "Run For The Money" (Season 11 Episode 9): "Captain Sweeney, if you say one more unkind word to Private Palmer, I will personally write up a report detailing your inhumanity, and I will have it placed in your 201 file, where it will follow you for the rest of your career. (Brushes aside Sweeney's interjection) IS THAT CLEAR? (Sweeney answers "Yes, sir.)
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Houlihan | Nurse Margie Cutler | Nurse Ginger Bayliss | Nurse Kellye Yamoto | Nurse Peggy Bigelow | Lieutenant Maria "Dish" Schneider Enlisted Sgt. Maxwell Q. Klinger | Corporal "Radar" OReilly | Sergeant Zelmo Zale | Pvt. Igor Straminsky | Sergeant Luther Rizzo | Sergeant Major Vollmer | Corporal Judson | Private Lorenzo Boone
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