Tony Randall

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Tony Randall
Randall in 2003
Born February 26, 1920
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Died May 17, 2004
New York City, New York

Tony Randall (February 26, 1920 – May 17, 2004) was an American comic actor.

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[edit] Early life

He was born as Arthur Leonard Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the only child of Mogscha Rosenberg, an art and antiques dealer, and his wife, Julia Finston.

[edit] Show business

He was first attracted to show business when a ballet company played in Tulsa. He attended Northwestern University for a year before traveling to New York City to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. He studied under Sanford Meisner and choreographer Martha Graham around 1935. Under the name Anthony Randall, he acted in radio soap operas and worked onstage opposite stars Jane Cowl in George Bernard Shaw's Candida and Ethel Barrymore in Emlyn Williams's The Corn Is Green. Tony then served for four years with the United States Army Signal Corps in World War II, refusing an entertainment assignment with Special Services. Then he worked at the Olney Theatre in Montgomery County, Maryland before heading back to New York City.

Randall on a 1963 episode of What's My Line?
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Randall on a 1963 episode of What's My Line?

[edit] Acting career

Randall is perhaps best known for his work on television. His breakthrough role was as gym teacher Harvey Weskit in Mr. Peepers from 1952-1955. After a long hiatus from the medium, he returned in 1970 as fussbudget Felix Unger in The Odd Couple, opposite Jack Klugman, a role he would keep for five years. Subsequently, he starred in The Tony Randall Show and Love, Sidney. In the TV movie that served as the latter show's pilot, Sidney Shorr was written as a gay man, but his character was neutered in the show. Disappointed by this turn of events and the series' lack of acceptance, Randall stayed away from television thereafter.

Randall's film roles included Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957), Let's Make Love (1960), Boys' Night Out (1962), The King of Comedy (1983), and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990).

He also played the title role(s) in the cult classic The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao.

He appeared in Pillow Talk (1959), the first of three movies in which Doris Day, Rock Hudson and Randall all starred. The other two are Lover Come Back and Send Me No Flowers. Elements from the plots of these films, particularly Pillow Talk, were parodied in the 2003 comedy Down With Love, with Renée Zellweger in the Doris Day role, Ewan McGregor in the Rock Hudson, and David Hyde Pierce as the Tony Randall character. Randall's final role was a cameo in this film.

In 1991, he founded the National Actors Theatre (currently housed at Pace University in New York City), and occasionally appeared in its productions.

He was a frequent and popular guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and often spoke of his love of opera, claiming it was due in no small part to the salaciousness of many of the plotlines. He also admitted to (actually bragged about) sneaking tape recorders into operas to make his own private bootleg recordings. He would often chide Johnny Carson for his chain-smoking, and was generally fastidious and fussy, much like his Felix Unger characterization. He seemed to have a wealth of facts and trivia at his disposal, and he told Carson that the secret was simply "to retain everything you were supposed to have learned in elementary school."

In keeping with his penchant for both championing and mocking the culture that he loved, during the Big Band Era revival in the mid-1960s he produced a record album of 1930s songs, Vo Vo De Oh Doe, inspired by (and covering) The New Vaudeville Band's one-hit wonder, "Winchester Cathedral." He mimicked (and somewhat exaggerated) the vibrato style of Carmen Lombardo, and the two of them once sang a duet of Lombardo's signature song "Boo Hoo (You've Got Me Crying for You)" on the Carson show.

[edit] Marriages

He was married to Florence Gibbs from 1942 until her death from cancer in 1992 and then, from November 17, 1995 until his death, to Heather Harlan, with whom he had two children, Julia Laurette Randall (b. 1997) and Jefferson Salvini Randall (b. 1998). To say the least, Randall became a father late in life but Heather talked of how he adored his children and how loving he was with them. She said he faced death bravely, but his greatest sorrow was leaving them behind.

[edit] Death

Tony Randall's headstone in Westchester Hills Cemetery
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Tony Randall's headstone in Westchester Hills Cemetery

At the age of 84 Tony Randall died in his sleep of complications from pneumonia, which he contracted following bypass surgery in December 2003. He is interred at the Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

[edit] Awards

[edit] Miscellany

In order to meet Wikipedia's quality standards, this article's trivia section requires cleanup.
Content in the trivia section should be integrated into other appropriate areas of the article.
  • In 1974, Tony Randall and Jack Klugman appeared in television spots endorsing a Yahtzee spinoff, Challenge Yahtzee. Although not identified as Felix and Oscar, the impression they left was clearly that of those two characters, especially as the TV spots were filmed on the same set as The Odd Couple.
  • In 1984, Randall endorsed the game Word Quest where the objective was to guess the proper definition of a given word.
  • He starred as nearly all of the leading characters in the 1963 film 7 Faces of Dr. Lao. The film received an Oscar for William Tuttle's makeup artistry, but many believe Randall never received proper acknowledgement for his versatile performances in the film, which required him to provide several different voices and portray a variety of characters.
  • Randall, along with John Goodman and Drew Barrymore was one of the first guests on the debut episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien on September 13, 1993. He would also appear in Conan's 5th Anniversary Special with the character PimpBot 5000.
  • Was one of the earliest advocates against smoking, and often would chide celebrities in person on the air for the habit.
  • Randall was mentioned in "Maximum Homerdrive", an episode of The Simpsons, for being one of the two men to ever finish Sirloin A Lot, a 16-pound steak.
  • In September 2003, Randall joked that if President George W. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney should come to his funeral, they were to be turned away. [1]
  • Bikini Kill have a song based on him, also named "Tony Randall".
  • Tony Randall named Felix Unger's TV children after himself (Leonard) and his sister (Edna).
  • In 2005, Jack Klugman published Tony And Me: A Story of Friendship, a book about his long friendship with Randall, of their long working relationship and how good Randall had been to Klugman after his cancer operation.
  • A fine game player, Randall appeared frequently on What's My Line?, Password, The Hollywood Squares, and The $10,000 Pyramid. He also sent up his somewhat pompous image with a single appearance as a "contestant" on The Gong Show in 1977.

[edit] External links

Preceded by:
Bob Hope, Jack Lemmon, David Niven, Rosalind Russell, and James Stewart
30th Academy Awards		 "Oscars" host
31st Academy Awards (with Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, David Niven, Laurence Olivier, and Mort Sahl)		 Succeeded by:
Bob Hope
32nd Academy Awards
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