Duke Forrest
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| M*A*S*H character | |
| Duke Forrest | |
|---|---|
| Rank | Captain |
| Gender | Male |
| Hair color | Black |
| Eye color | Brown |
| Home city | Forrest City, Georgia |
| Film portrayer | Tom Skerritt |
| Television portrayer | None |
| First appearance | M*A*S*H: A Novel About Three Army Doctors |
| Last appearance | MASH (on screen) |
Capt. Augustus Bedford "Duke" Forrest is a fictional character from the M*A*S*H novels and film. In the film, he is played by Tom Skerritt as a Southern gentleman/rascal type character. Although referring to black men as "nigras", Duke is apparently more racist in word than deed, being on generally as good terms with black men as white. When he says he likes blonde women, Hawkeye Pierce (Donald Sutherland) immediately teases him by saying that he must have a crush on "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Sally Kellerman), which Duke immediately denies and insists that he can't stand Hot Lips and believes that she is most likely not a natural blonde. To prove if she is or isn't, the doctors wait until Hot Lips goes to shower and they pull the tent up on her as she is washing herself, thoroughly humiliating her. Later, though, after Hawkeye and Trapper John McIntyre (Elliott Gould) leave for an operation in Tokyo, Duke and Hot Lips apparently have an affair. When Trapper and Hawkeye return, the door to The Swamp is locked, and Duke refuses to let them in. Hawkeye and Trapper then go around and observe Duke leading Hot Lips out from behind the tent, and they start laughing at her as she hurries away.
When Hawkeye and Trapper conspire to get former pro-footballer Spearchucker Jones transferred to the 4077th so that he can help the unit's football team, Duke expresses hesitation at sharing quarters with a black man, but then observes resignedly that he's "all washed up" at home anyway after rooming with a pair of Yankees. On Spearchucker's actual arrival Duke is quick to discuss their mutual acceptability, arguing that he and Jones understand how the land lies between white and black Southerners whereas "Yankees" don't; and that he himself has no "problem". Spearchucker say he has no "problem" either; it turns out that for reasons of family history Spearchucker is well-disposed to the Forrest family, and the two are firm friends from that day on.
Duke was left out of the TV series that followed the film so that the show would not be overcrowded. He is only mentioned once, briefly, in the television series. In the episode, "Life With Father", a Korean woman was looking for a specific person to help her, although her heavy accent slurs the name of the person she was asking for to sound like "Forrest". Hawkeye (now portrayed by Alan Alda) and Trapper (this time, Wayne Rogers) ask each other about Forrest. Trapper remembers and refers to him as "That brain surgeon who fell down a lot." Hawkeye responds by telling him he went back to America over two years ago and now owned a toy store.
In the two original sequels written by Richard Hooker, M*A*S*H Goes to Maine and M*A*S*H Mania, Duke returns to Georgia from Korea, and takes a course in urology. Hawkeye Pierce then invites him up to Spruce Harbor, Maine to join him and a new friend, Tony Holcombe, in private practice. Duke immediately turns up in Maine with his bloodhound, Little Eva, and joins Hawkeye in persuading Spearchucker Jones to become the local neurosurgeon. Duke and his family move into Crabapple Cove next to Hawkeye and Evelyn Pierce.
[edit] Trivial note
- This Southern character's name resembles Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate war hero and later, one of the founders and an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan (and also coincidentally the inspiration for another Southern-born fictional military hero, Forrest Gump).
- There is a woodland area in North Carolina called Duke Forest, so named because it is part of the campus of Duke University.
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