The Odd Couple (Characters)

Characters

Oscar Madison

Oscar Madison is the “messy” half of this famous “odd couple.” Oscar takes pity on his best friend, the newly separated and nearly suicidal Felix Ungar, and invites Felix to live with him in his New York City apartment. Within two weeks, however, Oscar regrets the invitation. The 43-year-old Oscar is carefree, pleasant, and very appealing as a character. When asked by one of the poker players what kind of sandwiches he’s serving, Oscar looks under the bread and says, “I got brown sandwiches and green sandwiches.” The green, he says, is “either very new cheese or very old meat.” At the end of the play there is a suggestion that Oscar’s experience with Felix has provoked a change in his personality because Oscar’s last words in the play are an admonishment to the poker players to be less messy. In both the original Broadway stage production in 1965 and in the movie version of 1968, Oscar was played by Walter Matthau. In the five-year television series beginning in 1970, Oscar was played by Jack Klugman.

Murray

Murray, one of the poker players, is a policeman and a methodical, even slow, thinker. He is also very gentle and caring, and demonstrates the most concern for Felix. Murray is fairly unflappable, but he is also a bit simple and naive.

Cecily Pigeon

Cecily Pigeon is a little more uninhibited than her sister, Gwendolyn; she is the one who makes such suggestive remarks as, “Oh, we’ve done spectacular things but I don’t think we’d want it spread all over the telly.”

Gwendolyn Pigeon

Though the Pigeon sisters seem almost indistinguishable, Simon describes Gwendolyn as the “mother hen.” Like her sister Cicely, Gwendolyn is in her 30s, British, attractive, and works as a secretary for the Slenderama Health Club. She is a little slower mentally than her sister — she has trouble remembering Felix’s name.

Roy

Roy is Oscar’s accountant and a man with an acute sense of smell. He is the poker player who complains most about air quality and bad odors in Oscar’s apartment. In the second act he storms from the game because the fastidious Felix has put disinfectant on the playing cards.

Speed

As his name implies, Speed is always in a hurry. He is the impatient poker player — sarcastic, complaining, and even a little mean. As the curtain rises on Murray shuffling the cards with agonizing slowness, the caustic Speed has the play’s sharp first line: “Tell me, Mr. Maverick, is this your first time on the riverboat?”

Felix Ungar

Felix Ungar is the “neat” member of the “odd couple,” originally played on Broadway by Art Carney (he also played the character Norton on the popular Jackie Gleason television comedy The Honeymooners ). In the movie, the role was rendered by Jack Lemmon, and in the television series Tony Randall portrayed Felix. A 44-year-old news writer for CBS, Felix responds to his wife’s decision to end their marriage by considering suicide, but in Simon’s comic world, attempted suicide is funny rather than serious; the compulsively tidy Felix sends his suicide note to his wife in a telegram. Oscar claims that Felix’s problem is an obsession with control and urges Felix to “let loose” once in a while, to do something he “feels” like doing rather than always doing what he thinks he’s “supposed” to do. At the end of the play, when Felix accepts the invitation from the Pigeon sisters to stay in their apartment, he is perhaps demonstrating a less conventional aspect of his personality.

Vinnie

Vinnie, the last of the poker players, is nervous and eccentric. At the initial poker game he is constantly checking his watch because he wants to leave early — he’s departing for a vacation in Florida (in July) the next morning.

Media Adaptations

• The Odd Couple was adapted by Simon himself as a 1968 film starring Walter Matthau as Oscar and Jack Lemmon as Felix. Gene Saks, who directed the stage version, also directed the film — which is very faithful to the play script, though occasionally expanded to include street scenes in New York City. In technicolor, running 106 minutes, available from Paramount Home Video and at many video rental stores. A videodisc (Laservision) version is also available from Paramount.
• An animated cartoon called The Oddball Couple premiered in September of 1976 on ABC and was based on the odd couple concept as it featured a slob-like dog named Fleabag and a fussy cat named Spiffy, both freelance magazine writers.
• The Odd Couple was adapted as a 30 minute television show that ran on ABC from September of 1970 to July of 1975 and included 114 episodes. Jack Klugman played Oscar and Tony Randall played Felix, but in the series many other characters — like Oscar’s secretary, Myrna, and Felix’s daughter, Edna — had to be invented to satisfy the need for greater variety. Available in reruns on some cable television channels like Nickelodeon.
• The Odd Couple was adapted again by ABC in October of 1982 as another 30 minute television series called The New Odd Couple and ran until June of 1983 with black actors Demond Wilson and Ron Glass playing Oscar and Felix. Most episodes were simply recast versions of previous The Odd Couple scripts.