Tony Randall
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| Tony Randall. | |||||||
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 Randall in 2003 |
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| Born | February 26, 1920 Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA |
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| Died | May 17, 2004 (aged 84) New York City, New York, USA |
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Tony Randall (February 26, 1920 – May 17, 2004) was an American comic and Emmy-winning actor.[1][2]
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Randall was born Arthur Leonard Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Julia Finston and Mogscha Rosenberg, who was an art and antiques dealer.[3] Known as Leonard, he had a sister Edna.
[edit] Acting career
Randall 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 worked onstage opposite stars Jane Cowl in George Bernard Shaw's Candida and Ethel Barrymore in Emlyn Williams's The Corn Is Green. Randall 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.
A noted raconteur, Randall co-wrote with Mike Mindlin a collection of amusing and sometimes racy show business anecdotes called Which Reminds Me.
Randall began his career on the stage, appearing in minor roles on Broadway, and supporting roles on tours. In the 1940's of his first breaks was playing the "Reggie" on the long-running radio series I Love a Mystery. His first major role in a Broadway hit was in Breaks Like the Wind in 1955. In 1958 he played the leading role in the musical comedy Oh, Captain!, taking on a role originated on film by Alec Guinness. Oh, Captain! was a critical failure, but a personal success for Randall, who received glowing notices and a Tony Award nomination for his legendary dance turn with prima ballerina Alexandra Danilova.
He is perhaps best known for his work on television. His breakthrough role was as gym teacher Harvey Weskit in Mr. Peepers (1952–1955). He had the starring role in an NBC-TV special "The Secret of Freedom" which was filmed during the summer of 1959 in Mount Holly, New Jersey, and broadcast on the network during the fall of 1959 and again in early 1960. 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 acknowledgment for his versatile performances in the film, which required him to provide several different voices and portray a variety of characters.
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. The names of Unger's children on The Odd Couple were Edna and Leonard, named after Randall's sister and Randall himself. In 1974, Randall and Jack Klugman appeared in television spots endorsing a Yahtzee spinoff, Challenge Yahtzee. Although not identified as Felix and Oscar the TV spots were filmed on the same set as The Odd Couple.
Subsequently, he starred in The Tony Randall Show and Love, Sidney. In the TV movie that served as the show's pilot, Sidney Shorr was clearly written as a gay man, but his character's sexuality was made ambiguous when the series premiered. 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), Pillow Talk (1959), 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 (1964), co-starring Barbara Eden. That same year, they co-starred in The Brass Bottle.
Pillow Talk was the first of three movies in which Doris Day, Rock Hudson and Randall all starred. Randall, by all accounts, ended up with the best lines ("It takes an early bird to take a worm like me"; on the crying Doris Day: "I never knew a woman such a size had so much water in her", etc). The other two are Lover Come Back (1961) and Send Me No Flowers (1963). 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 in this film.
Randall was the host during the breaks for the October 30 - November 2, 1987 free preview of HBO's short lived premium channel Festival. In 1991, he founded the National Actors Theatre (ultimately housed at Pace University in New York City) where he gave his final stage performance in Luigi Pirandello's Right You Are (If You Think You Are). Periodically, he performed in stage revivals of The Odd Couple with Jack Klugman including a stint in London in 1996. The following year, Randall and Klugman reunited to appear on Broadway in a revival of The Sunshine Boys.
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." At the time of his death, Randall had appeared as a guest on The Tonight Show more often (105 times) than any other celebrity.
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. Randall was also a frequent guest on both of David Letterman's late-night shows Late Night with David Letterman and The Late Show with David Letterman, making 70 appearances, according to his obituary in the Washington Post; Letterman said that Randall was one of his favorite guests, along with Regis Philbin.
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.
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] Personal life
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This section is written like a personal reflection or essay and may require cleanup. Please help improve it by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style. (December 2007) |
Randall was married to Florence Gibbs from 1942 until her death from cancer in 1992, and then, from November 17, 1995, until his death in 2004, to Heather Harlan. Ms Harlan had been an intern in one of Randall's theatrical programs. At the time, Tony was 75, Heather 25. The couple subsequently had two children, Julia Laurette Randall (b. 1997) and Jefferson Salvini Randall (b. 1998).
In Randall's 1989 autobiographical collection of anecdotes, Which Reminds Me, he proclaimed that any publicity an actor generates should be about his work, not himself. "The public knows only one thing about me: I don't smoke," he proclaimed. But by 1995, he revised his opinion, and made his engagement and marriage to Harlan, and subsequent fatherhood, quite public. For the most part, the media treated the marriage in a light-hearted spirit, but when children entered the picture, not everyone was convinced the couple was completely forthright.[4] Randall was a doting and loving father, Heather would later recount, who faced death bravely, and felt great sorrow to leave his children behind.
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. Also on September 22, 2003, Randall and Jack Klugman reunited once again in the CBS-TV Movie The Odd Couple: Together Again reprising their roles as Felix Unger and Oscar Madison. The story began when, after Felix ruins plans for his daughter Edna's Wedding, his wife Gloria throws him out the house for 11 days which left him no choice but to move back with Oscar and to help him recover, getting him back in shape after having throat cancer surgery having his vocal cord removed leaving his voice very raspy.
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.
On May 17, 2004, at the age of 84, 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.[1][2]
[edit] Awards and nominations
Randall was nominated for five Golden Globe awards and two Emmy Awards, winning one Emmy in 1975 for his work on the sitcom The Odd Couple. In 1993, he received The Hundred Year Association of New York's Gold Medal Award "in recognition of outstanding contributions to the City of New York." Pace University granted him an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree in 2003.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Severo, Richard. "Tony Randall, Half of the 'Odd Couple,' Dies at 84", The New York Times, 18 May 2004. Retrieved on 2008-05-14.
- ^ a b Shales, Tom. "Tony Randall, Bright, Zestful And Always Endearing.", The Washington Post, 10 May 2004. Retrieved on 2008-04-26.
- ^ Tony Randall Biography (1920-2004)
- ^ Tony Randall and Heather Randall - May December Romance - Marie Claire
[edit] External links
- Tony Randall at Find A Grave
- Tony Randall at the Internet Broadway Database
- Tony Randall at the Internet Movie Database
- Tony Randall at TV.com
- Archive of American Television Interview with Tony Randall April 28, 1998 on Google Video
- Pace University's tribute to Tony Randall
- Tony Randall interview: Performance Working in the Theatre CUNY-TV video by the American Theatre Wing, September 1989
- Jack Klugman & Tony Randall-Infopage
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