This thread shall drive me to drink; or I'm "losing it." 15 or 16 years ago I had a delightful lady customer at my camera store. Priscilla was in her 70s and really enjoyed the cameras/equipment I sold her and for which I gave her continuing guidance. And I can't, for the life of me, remember her last name; or more importantly for this thread, her husband's real last name.
They lived in Bremen, Maine. He commuted to the medical center in Waterville, Maine(that's going from ocean-side to central Maine) where he was a surgeon at Thayer Hospital for many years. I only met him a couple times because when Priscilla was at my store "Dr." would be on duty 45 miles inland. Anyway, he had a sideline - a flair for composition. Under the name, Richard Hooker, he wrote a novel which recapitulated parts of his armed services career. That novel transcended into numerous other follows-up.
I'm certain you're ahead of me, at this point. Fact is that Dr. Richard (can't remember) wrote a book named, MASH, and the rest is history. "They" did very well from the results of his original book -- and the original movie.
However, he received not a heck-of-a-lot from the residual stuff(television series) because he had sold off most of the rights. Nice memories; I just can't come up with his real last name. Incidentally, they were neighbors, in Bremen, of Elizabeth "Betty" Noyce, whose husband(Robert) was the co-founder of INTEL, and FAIRCHILD, and co-discoverer of the integrated chip.
HR