Actor Alan Alda’s new book is full of the stuff that matters

Alan Alda titled his new book “Never Have Your Dog Stuffed – and Other Things I’ve Learned.”

”(T)he hardest part was how to take a life and make it one simple story, not just a bunch of anecdotes,” says the 69-year-old actor, who has written numerous screenplays but never a book.

“I didn’t like the idea of writing a memoir or an autobiography. I only put in stuff that moved the story forward.”

A lot has happened to move Alda’s story forward this year. He received an Oscar nomination for “The Aviator,” a Tony nomination for his Broadway performance in “Glengarry Glen Ross,” and an Emmy nomination for “The West Wing,” in which he plays Republican presidential hopeful Arnold Vinick.

In tonight’s special, live episode of the NBC political drama, Vinick will square off against Democrat Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) in a debate.

Which candidate will succeed President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) by season’s end?

“I wouldn’t spoil the surprise even if I knew,” Alda replies.

When he isn’t shuttling to Los Angeles to shoot the series, Alda leaves his Long Island home to hit the campaign trail for “Never Have Your Dog Stuffed.”

Its first sentence establishes the book’s matter-of-fact, often darkly witty tone: “My mother didn’t try to stab my father until I was 6, but she must have shown signs of oddness before that.”

Alda was the son of a mentally ill mother and an actor father who appeared in the original Broadway production of “Guys and Dolls.” By age 9, he had decided he would be an actor, too.

At 21, Alda wed a pretty clarinetist named Arlene. They soon had three daughters (and now seven grandchildren).

His early career was marked by false starts and dead ends. Then, in his mid-30s, he struck gold as Dr. Hawkeye Pierce in the beloved CBS comedy “M*A*S*H.”

Two years ago, Alda found himself on the receiving end of emergency surgery for an intestinal obstruction.

“When I woke up,” he says, savoring the memory, “was I glad to be there! I was almost manic about being alive.

“Then I started going back over my whole life, and I began to realize how connected the whole part of my early life was to this euphoria I was feeling. I really did want to understand everything that went before, and see what I could learn from it.”

“Never Have Your Dog Stuffed” is the result. As for the title, when his dog died suddenly, his dad, in a misguided attempt to console him, had the creature stuffed.

“Stuffing your dog,” Alda writes, “is more than what happens when you take a dead body and turn it into a souvenir. It’s also what happens when you hold on to any living moment longer than it wants you to.”

The experience didn’t stop him from sending away for a mail-order course in taxidermy a few years later.

“There was a lot of stuff in there, and most of it was gooey,” he says of his attempt to preserve an owl’s carcass.

The birthday bunch

Director Mike Nichols is 74. Actress Sally Field is 59. Singer Glenn Frey is 57. Actress Lori Singer (“Fame,” “Footloose”) is 48. Actress Kelly Rutherford (“Melrose Place”) is 37. Actor Ethan Hawke is 35. Actress Thandie Newton (“Beloved”) is 33. Model-actress Rebecca Romijn is 33. Actress Nicole Dubuc (“Major Dad”) is 27.