Oscar Madison

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Oscar Madison is a character in The Odd Couple, which began as a Broadway play, then was a film and then a television series.

In The Odd Couple, Oscar Madison (played by Walter Matthau in the play and films, Jack Klugman in the TV series) is the everyman, and is a sportswriter for the New York Herald. A laid-back slob, he has a strange but strong relationship with his compulsively neurotic friend Felix Unger. Their contrasting personalities combined with living together in close quarters provided for some very funny situations. In both the film and the TV series, Oscar often wore a New York Mets baseball cap.

In 1982-1983, ABC aired The New Odd Couple, a remake of the television series with African-American actors in the two leading roles. Oscar was portrayed by Demond Wilsonand( the Felix character was portrayed by Ron Glass, best known for his portrayal as Sgt.Harris in the hit TV show,"Barney Miller".). In this version, Oscar wore a New York Yankees cap.

In 1985, two females portrayed the lead characters in a Broadway revival of The Odd Couple. Oscar's female counterpart, Olive Madison, was portrayed by Rita Moreno.

In 1993, Klugman reprised his role as Oscar in the TV-movie The Odd Couple: Together Again with co-star Tony Randall. Klugman lost a vocal cord to throat cancer and this struggle was included into the script.

A 2005 Broadway revival of the play featured Nathan Lane as Oscar.