What is it?
Herz, Peggy. TV’s Fabulous Faces. New York: Scholastic Book Services, 1976.
Why should M*A*S*H fans care?
This is a great collection of biographies of television stars from the M*A*S*H era. This volume of Peggy Herz’s Scholastic books featured Mike Farrell.
As a M*A*S*H fan, what part(s) should I read?
The chapter on Mike Farrell is only seven pages long, but it does offer a great introduction to him as a person. As always, I recommend reading the whole book because there are some other familiar faces!
TL;DR Review
Peggy Herz’s books for Scholastic Book Clubs offered a familiar formula of highlighting the actors behind popular shows in the 1970s. TV’s Fabulous Faces is no different, and Herz highlights some very well known actors. For M*A*S*H fans, this volume introduced a new M*A*S*H face, Mike Farrell. But he isn’t the only person in the book with a M*A*S*H connection!
Full Review
For the Library posts, 2026 has been the year of Peggy Herz books. As I’ve mentioned, I worked for Scholastic, so children’s books are important to me because they help promote literacy. I was not the most avid reader as a kid, and I was often told that I wasn’t reading the “right books.” TV’s Fabulous Faces would almost certainly have been considered “not right” by my teachers, but it is well written, tells a clear story for each actor, and features quotes from the actors. The books aren’t novels, but they are works of non-fiction that encouraged reading, and this book provided middle schoolers with details about their favorite TV stars.
As a magazine editor in Los Angeles, Herz had access to the most famous television and movie stars of the 1970s. She wrote articles for Scholastic’s classroom magazines, and like this book, the articles would be bundled into books for the Book Club division. This volume includes a list of well known actors and shows from the mid-1970s including Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams from Laverne & Shirley, Gabe Kaplan from Welcome Back, Kotter, Lindsay Wagner from The Bionic Woman, and Mackenzie Phillips and Valerie Bertinelli from One Day at a Time. There are also a few show spotlights including chapters for Barney Miller, Space: 1999, and Starsky and Hutch. Fans of the M*A*S*H movie will also recognize John Schuck, who played Captain “Painless” Waldowski in the Robert Altman film. In this book, he is featured for his role on Holmes and Yoyo. He played one of the title characters, but the series only lasted for 13 episodes before being cancelled. In addition to his movie roles, Schuck is a well known for his television work, and he has about 100 acting credits.
Of course, the face that M*A*S*H fans will recognize most from this book is that of Mike Farrell. In 1975, the show’s fourth season, he joined M*A*S*H as Captain B.J. Hunnicutt. Herz focused on the newness of Farrell on M*A*S*H since his character replaced the infamous Captain John “Trapper” McIntyre, and he joined the series as Hawkeye’s bunkmate in the Swamp. Herz offers a great profile of Farrell discussing him growing up in Los Angeles, his time in school, and his service in the United States Marines. Herz then shifted to acting, and how he got the role of B.J. in M*A*S*H. When asked about joining M*A*S*H, Farrell said, “I had been under contract to Universal for four years. I was quite comfortable. There were no restrictions on whether I worked or not. I had been establishing a place in town. The next logical step was for me to be the lead in my own series. And her I was being asked to step into a long-running series and be in the second slot behind Alan Alda. From a career point of view, it was a question of whether I should do M*A*S*H or wait for my own series.” Thankfully, he chose M*A*S*H, and the rest is history. The article also provides some biographical information introducing readers to his then wife, Judy Farrell. She appeared in eight episodes of M*A*S*H as Nurse Able. Herz also mentions Farrell’s two children, Josh and Erin. The name of Farrell’s real life daughter might sound familiar to M*A*S*H fans because her name was used for B.J.’s daughter in the series.
Peggy Herz has a long series of books for Scholastic, and due to her location in Los Angeles, she focused on the entertainment industry. I think this is the seventh book by Herz that I have featured on the site, and I promise I am reaching the end! But I like that Herz had a long-running series of children’s books that featured actors from popular television shows. It demonstrates the popularity of television by the mid-1970s for Scholastic to focus so much time and money into these books and the companion classroom magazines. TV’s Fabulous Faces is a great example of what made these books successful because they featured the most popular shows of the time and offered insights into the actors’ personal lives. While adults were able to get their entertainment news from TV Guide or the tabloids, children had Scholastic, Weekly Reader, and Highlights. They all featured characters from popular culture, including the cast of M*A*S*H.
The M*A*S*H Historian 