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'Odd Couple' star Jack Klugman dead at 90
Source:Reuters Published: 2012-12-25 17:44:07
Jack Klugman speaks at 6th annual TV Land Awards in 2008. Photo: CFP
Emmy-winning actor Jack Klugman, a versatile, raspy-voiced mainstay of US television during the 1970s and early 1980s through his starring roles in The Odd Couple and Quincy, M.E., died on Monday at the age of 90.
Klugman, whose pairing with Tony Randall on The Odd Couple created one of television's most memorable duos, died at his home in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles following a period of declining health, according to his son, Adam Klugman.
"He went very suddenly and peacefully... he was there one minute and gone the next," the actor's son told Reuters, adding that the elder Klugman had "been in convalescent mode for a while."
He said his father had lost his ability to walk and spent much of his time in bed. His wife of four and a half years, Peggy Crosby, former daughter-in-law of the late singer Bing Crosby, was with him when he died, his son said.
In addition to his TV success, Klugman enjoyed a healthy career on the stage as well as in movies and made successful forays into horse breeding and political activism. Not even the loss of a vocal cord to cancer in 1989 could silence him for long.
Klugman gained fame for playing slovenly sports writer Oscar Madison in the sitcom The Odd Couple - a role he also had played on Broadway - and then as a crusading coroner in the crime drama Quincy, M.E.
The Odd Couple, based on Neil Simon's play about two disparate divorced men forced to share an apartment, ran for five years on the ABC network, starting in 1970, but was never a hit during that time.
Only through reruns did Klugman and co-star Randall, who played neat-freak Felix Unger, leave their mark as one of US television's great sitcom teams.
"We had wonderful respect for one another, we liked working together but we never became friends," Klugman told the Miami Herald in 2005. "I think that was on account of me. I was withdrawn. I never let anybody get too close."
It was not until Klugman's cancer surgery, following years of heavy smoking and throat problems, that a friendship developed with Randall. Klugman had no voice and was glumly resigned to the end of his acting career, but with Randall's encouragement, he returned to the stage. They resurrected their Odd Couple characters in the 1993 TV movie. Later, Klugman would pay tribute to Randall, who died in 2004, in the memoir Tony and Me: A Story of Friendship.
Reuters
Emmy-winning actor Jack Klugman, a versatile, raspy-voiced mainstay of US television during the 1970s and early 1980s through his starring roles in The Odd Couple and Quincy, M.E., died on Monday at the age of 90.
Klugman, whose pairing with Tony Randall on The Odd Couple created one of television's most memorable duos, died at his home in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles following a period of declining health, according to his son, Adam Klugman.
"He went very suddenly and peacefully... he was there one minute and gone the next," the actor's son told Reuters, adding that the elder Klugman had "been in convalescent mode for a while."
He said his father had lost his ability to walk and spent much of his time in bed. His wife of four and a half years, Peggy Crosby, former daughter-in-law of the late singer Bing Crosby, was with him when he died, his son said.
In addition to his TV success, Klugman enjoyed a healthy career on the stage as well as in movies and made successful forays into horse breeding and political activism. Not even the loss of a vocal cord to cancer in 1989 could silence him for long.
Klugman gained fame for playing slovenly sports writer Oscar Madison in the sitcom The Odd Couple - a role he also had played on Broadway - and then as a crusading coroner in the crime drama Quincy, M.E.
The Odd Couple, based on Neil Simon's play about two disparate divorced men forced to share an apartment, ran for five years on the ABC network, starting in 1970, but was never a hit during that time.
Only through reruns did Klugman and co-star Randall, who played neat-freak Felix Unger, leave their mark as one of US television's great sitcom teams.
"We had wonderful respect for one another, we liked working together but we never became friends," Klugman told the Miami Herald in 2005. "I think that was on account of me. I was withdrawn. I never let anybody get too close."
It was not until Klugman's cancer surgery, following years of heavy smoking and throat problems, that a friendship developed with Randall. Klugman had no voice and was glumly resigned to the end of his acting career, but with Randall's encouragement, he returned to the stage. They resurrected their Odd Couple characters in the 1993 TV movie. Later, Klugman would pay tribute to Randall, who died in 2004, in the memoir Tony and Me: A Story of Friendship.
Reuters
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