Tony Randall has died

[Guest Chaney]

May 18, 2004

Tony Randall, Half of the 'Odd Couple,' Dies at 84

By RICHARD SEVERO - The New York Times

Tony Randall, the sardonic actor with the commanding voice who played the fussbudget Felix Unger in "The Odd Couple," the classic television series about mismatched Manhattan roommates, and who spent a career doing light comedic roles in Hollywood and on the New York stage, died in his sleep Monday night at the N.Y.U. Medical Center, his publicity firm said today.

He was 84 years old and had lived for most of his career on Manhattan's West Side.

Mr. Randall's publicity firm, Springer Associates, said the actor died of complications from a long illness. His wife, Heather, was by his side when he died, the firm said.

Mr. Randall was a multifaceted actor who felt at home in Shakespeare and Shaw, as well as in expounding the virtues of Verdi and other operatic composers, which he did on many occasions. But mostly he got comedy work, and the public remembered him with considerable affection even when it did not care very much for the parts written for him.

He had so many frothy parts in the movies and on television that John Leonard wrote in The New York Times in 1976 that Mr. Randall "slips into sitcoms ... as if into a warm bath, to play with the rubber ducks the writers have provided. Dignity is his washrag. He is so talented that one wouldn't blame him for a hint of disdain, even of contempt, for many of the lines he has had to speak, the predicaments to be endured. There has never been any such hint. He somehow civilizes the material." Suave, urbane, his rich baritone voice the vehicle for the clipped diction of the demanding elocution professor that Mr. Randall easily could have been, Mr. Randall said he had been pleased to play Felix Unger, whose roommate and temperamental opposite was Oscar Madison, the slovenly, unkempt, cigar-smoking sportswriter played by Jack Klugman. These two heterosexual New York males were thrown together by the vicissitudes of life (mostly their wives) and made the worst of it, to the delight of television viewers.

But Mr. Randall, who won an Emmy Award for his portrayal, made clear that he didn't want to be always or only thought of as Felix Unger, because he could do so many other things.

He had a great love of repertory theater and in 1991 founded, with a million dollars of his own money and much more from the moneyed sources who backed his commercial acting, the National Actors Theatre in New York. Its purpose was to keep the works of such playwrights as Ibsen, Chekhov and Arthur Miller before the public, and at a reasonable prices.

He was performing as recently as December. Mr. Randall starred in the National Actors Theater's production of Luigi Pirandello's "Right You Are," playing the role of Lamberto Laudisi.

In a review in the Times, Ben Brantley said that Mr. Randall "is certainly a trouper. Scampering playfully about the set while dispensing tantalizing bits of wisdom, his Laudisi brings to mind a Mr. Rogers in an existentialist neighborhood."

But the critics were not especially kind to the works by Mr. Randall's theater company,, and he said more than once that he was especially disappointed in the reviews his company got from The New York Times. But he stuck with it, saying he refused "to be brushed aside" by The Times or any other newspaper.

He made clear, whenever he was asked, that his favorite role in more than 50 years of acting was that of a middle-aged American diplomat in the Broadway stage production of "M. Butterfly," David Henry Hwang's 1988 Tony winner. In it, Mr. Randall falls in love with a gorgeous Japanese woman who turns out to be a male spy in disguise.

"It was the closest I ever came to being the kind of actor I believe in," he informed reporters on more than one occasion. He sadly told Robert Berkvist of The New York Times in 1971, "I've never really done what I wanted to do with my life," and with the exception of his role in `M. Butterfly," it was true.

Much to Mr. Randall's dismay, most of the television-watching public did not often, if ever, go to stage productions, and many did not recall "M. Butterfly." But they certainly remembered Felix Unger. Even 20 years after "The Odd Couple" went off the air in 1974, Mr. Randall was forever being stopped on the streets of New York (he loved to walk and when he didn't, he almost always took public transportation) by people who never forgot Felix and were convinced that Unger and Randall had to be the same.

"It was fun for the first 15 years," Mr. Randall said.

Tony Randall was born Leonard Rosenberg in Tulsa, Okla., on Feb. 26, 1920. He was the son of Mogscha Rosenberg, a dealer in artworks and antiques, and the former Julia Finston.

He was drawn to acting as a child. He had a most expressive, elastic face and used it in class when he was not expected to, with the result that one of his grade school teachers sent a note home, asking his parents to order him to stop making funny faces. He appeared in his first production in grade school and liked it so much that he decided acting was what he would do with the rest of his life.

But when he went to Tulsa's Central High School, he was unsuccessful when he tried out for parts in school plays, perhaps because he then had a childhood stammer he was in the process of overcoming.

As a teenager, he went to see plays whenever he could and on one occasion, the renowned Katherine Cornell came to town in a touring company production of "Romeo and Juliet." Mr. Randall went backstage to get her autograph, for which he was asked to pay 25 cents (Miss Cornell informed him that such money went to charity). She borrowed the boy's pen to write her name.

"Someday," Mr. Randall said, "I'll give you mine."

"Autograph or pen?` Miss Cornell tartly inquired.

After high school, Mr. Randall enrolled as a speech and drama major at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., but dropped out after a year and moved to New York, where he began to study acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater. His teachers there included Sanford Meisner, a fine actor but stern taskmaster, and Martha Graham, the dancer, who gave him lessons on how to move about the stage gracefully.

His childhood stammer finally went away in the early 1940s and he was able to find work in radio. One of his first parts was on a weekly show called "I Love a Mystery," which revolved around three adventurers named Jack, Doc and Reggie. Mr. Randall was Reggie. His voice was also heard on such radio soaps as "Portia Faces Life," `When a Girl Marries" and "Life's True Story."

In 1941, he made his New York stage debut in an adaptation of the 13th century Chinese fantasy, "A Circle of Chalk," and later that year appeared in Shaw's "Candida." He was in rehearsal for a part in Thornton Wilder's "The Skin of Our Teeth" in 1942 when he was drafted into the Army. He quickly rose from private to first lieutenant but saw no combat. His last job with the Army was delivering classified documents to various offices in Washington.

After his discharge in 1946, he returned to New York and made appearances on a radio show then presided over by Henry Morgan, the satirist. Over the next two years he renewed his acquaintance with Katherine Cornell, with parts in a touring production of "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" and on Broadway in "Anthony and Cleopatra."

Eva Wolas wrote what was then described as a "sex comedy" in 1948, called "To Tell the Truth," and Mr. Randall got a part in it. He was noticed by Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times who wrote that he gave an "excellent performance." There was evidence that those lessons from Miss Graham paid off because Mr. Atkinson said that Mr. Randall moved about the stage "with the grace of a dancer." That led to his appearance in 1950 in "Caesar and Cleopatra," which starred Lilli Palmer and Sir Cedric Hardwick.

Two years later he landed a role on television that in a sense would presage his Felix Unger portrayal in that people began to feel that Mr. Randall and this first character — a schoolteacher named Harvey Weskit — were really the same. The show was called "Mr. Peepers." Produced by Fred Coe for NBC, it starred Wally Cox as Peepers, a sweet, shy, somewhat befuddled teacher. As Weskit, Mr. Randall was cast as Peepers' posturing, swaggering sidekick. It lasted for four years and earned Mr. RandaEDn Emmy nomination. In later years, Mr. Randall said he had fond memories of the writing and direxting that made the show work. The role made both Mr. Cox and Mr. Randall sought-after stars.

By the late 1950s, Mr. Randall was swamped with work, appearing in some of Max Liebman's television spectaculars and briefly substituting for Steve Allen on the Tonight Show and for Arthur Godfrey, who then had a popular daytime show. There were also a great many television plays.

Throughout all of this, he maintained his connection to the legitimate theater. In 1954, he played the part of a boozing movie star in "Oh, Men! Oh, Women!" and he also got the role of E.K. Hornbeck, the iconclastic reporter in "Inherit the Wind," a dramatization of the 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial" over the teaching of evolution in Tennessee. Walter Kerr, writing in the New York Herald Tribune, said that Mr. Randall played the role well, "uttering juicy sarcasms with great finesse."

He started to make Hollywood pictures, too. He appeared in the film version of "Oh, Men! Oh, Women!" and he was an advertising man in "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" That same year, 1957, Twentieth Century-Fox asked him to appear as an alcoholic car salesman in Jerry Wald's "No Down Payment," a soaper about young marrieds.

In the early 60's, he appeared prominently in three Doris Day-Rock Hudson movies, "Lover Come Back," "Pillow Talk" and "Send Me No Flowers." He was cast as the foil to Mr. Hudson's romantic lead. He had roles of a similar vein in such movies as "Let's Make Love" (with Marilyn Monroe), and "Boys Night Out" (with Kim Novak). Among his other television credits are "The Tony Randall Show" (1977-78), in which he played a judge and "Love, Sidney" (1981-83), in which he played a middle-aged man who took in an unwed mother and offered to help raise her child.

As he gained fame as an actor, Mr. Randall became active in a number of causes, including a futile effort to save the old Metropolitan Opera building. He wrote a letter to The Times in which he asked, "Why not save the Met at least until we have heard the new house?" After the new house was finally built, Mr. Randall became a frequent visitor, showing up at the stage door for rehearsals and happily sitting through them when he wasn't working himself. He had a fine baritone voice but disparaged it, explaining, "I have a nice, healthy tone but it's not terribly musical. Musicality is something that can't be taught." Mr. Randall, who studied voice for 32 years with Henry Jacobi, added, "If beautiful voices are golden, mine is aluminum." But there were nevertheless occasions during interviews when he'd launch into "La Traviata` or some ohter Verdi opera, to the delight of reporters.

During this same period, he became national chairman of the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation, a post he occupied for some 30 years. Myasthenia gravis is an incurable neuromuscular disease that incapitates its victims and kills them. He was a compassionate man who detested maudlin pronouncements of any kind and so when he was asked why he became involved with the foundation, he replied, "My agent told me I needed a disease."

As he grew older and pursued the acting work that was so important to him, Mr. Randall married Florence Gibbs in 1939. She died of cancer in 1992. They had no children. He married Heather Hanlan, a former intern with the National Actors Theatre, in 1995 when he was 75 and she was 24. They had two children — Julia Laurette Randall, born in April 1997, named after Mr. Randall's mother and Laurette Taylor, a Broadway actress who died in 1946; and Jefferson Salvini Randall, born in June 1998, who was named after Tommaso Salvini, an Italian Shakespearean actor who worked in the 19th century.

Mr. Randall actively fought the aging process. When he was approaching his 80th year, his second wife introduced him to Rollerblading, which he thoroughly enjoyed until some young woman passed him, turned around and yelled, "You must be out of your mind." He decided she was right and immediately turned to bicycle riding.

[Hardbopjazz]

Sad ti hear this.

R.I.P. Tony

[Matthew]

Favorite line from The Odd Couple. To set the scence, it's a "flashback" segment where Felix is explaining to Oscar why Felix and Gloria had to get married.

Felix: Oscar, we have to get married, you understand?

Oscar: You HAVE to marry her? A man who covers up every piece of furniture with plastic, and you HAVE to marry her!?"

Cracks me up everytime. How that got past the censors, I'll never know!

Edited May 18, 2004 by Matthew

[Rooster_Ties]

Edited May 18, 2004 by Rooster_Ties

[catesta]

The Odd Couple is one of my all time favorite shows.

RIP Felix.

I'm sure TVLand wll be running an Odd Couple marathon soon.

[brownie]

Loved him in Frank Tashlin's 'Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?' where he played opposite the

one and only Jayne Mansfield who was more fun than Doris Day (Randall's costar in

a number of forgettable films).

He will be missed!

[ralphie_boy]

Very sad. The Odd Couple is one of my all-time favorites too.

RIP Tony.

[Chrome]

He married Heather Hanlan, a former intern with the National Actors Theatre, in 1995 when he was 75 and she was 24. They had two children — Julia Laurette Randall, born in April 1997, named after Mr. Randall's mother and Laurette Taylor, a Broadway actress who died in 1946; and Jefferson Salvini Randall, born in June 1998, who was named after Tommaso Salvini, an Italian Shakespearean actor who worked in the 19th century.

I can remember when this was in the news ... changed my whole opinion of Tony.

[Dan Gould]

Saddened to hear this, though, as noted above, Tony managed to woo a pretty nice looking young thing only a few years before.

There was an interesting article in the NYT recently about Felix Ungar as the world's first "metrosexual" and how the producers felt they had to make it clear that Felix was definitely hetero.

But there was much more to Mr. Randall than Felix Ungar. RIP.

[Jim R]

He was also very good in his later years as a frequent surprise guest on Letterman. A great subtle wit, with classic comedic timing and delivery. I'll miss him.

RIP Mr. Randall.

[Dmitry]

Randall was the kind of man who will definitely not rest in peace.

He was also an actor who was bigger than his roles. Much bigger.

[The Mule]

Loved him in Frank Tashlin's 'Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?'

Think I'll have to screen this tonight as tribute.

One of my favoriate Tony Randall moments is at the very beginning, before the credits, where he is sitting behind a drum kit playing the 20th Century Fox fanfare. After the buh-rump-bump, buh-rump-bump, buuuuh-rump-bump part, he jumps up and finishes by bowing a stand-up bass.

Wonderful stuff.

RIP

[7/4]

later Tony.

[Dmitry]

Does anyone remember The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao ?

I always though that he deserved more than a Felix. More than an Oscar even.

[BERIGAN]

Sad, but a pretty long life! I happen to like the Day, Hudson, Randall films, so sue me! He had a cameo in the Take-off on all the Doris, Rock films, Down with Love...he was fine, the rest of the cast made you appreciate the original films....

Oh, and I just assumed that first marriage was a marriage of convenience,(Light in the loafers! ) since he never said anything about her on the tonight show, just that they had been married forever...then, bam remarries and has 2 kids! And a boy even, that has to be really rare at his age!

And everyone is right about Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter!

[Guest Chaney]

My mother is fond of noting that no one ever has anything bad to say about a celebrity once he's died.

On that note, I remember seeing Randall many times on Carson's Tonight Show and was often slightly embarrassed over Carson's body language and the looks he'd give the audience, as if to say: MY GOD TONY! You are ONE pompous blowhard!

I was always a fan. Randall was never a great talent but I believe it would be fair to say that he did the best he could with the talent(s) he had.

On his marriage, it's nice that the Randall name will live on... which might have been the purpose of that union.

[Matthew]

Always thought Randall was a vastly underrated actor. Even in those comedies of the late fifties I thought Randall also presented a glimpse of the dark underside of 1950s corporate life. Like he was saying: "Yes, I'm doing comedy here, but also beware, working for the American Corporate Machine can do serious emotional damage." It was tricky how he did it, but to my mind, that aspect was always there in his performances.

[BruceH]

He was also very good in his later years as a frequent surprise guest on Letterman. A great subtle wit, with classic comedic timing and delivery. I'll miss him.

Yes; I'll be surprised if Dave doesn't say something tonight.

RIP