Tony Randall
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Tony Randall
Actor Tony Randall was most famous for his role on Broadway and on television as "Felix Unger" in Neil Simon's The Odd Couple. But the erudite performer was also well known for his expertise in opera and classical theatre.
Born Leonard Rosenberg on February 26, 1920, in Tulsa, OK, Randall studied speech and drama at Northwestern University, and then went to Columbia University and New York's Neighborhood Playhouse, where he studied with Sanford Meisner. He studied movement with Martha Graham, and voice with Henri Jacobi.
In 1941, Randall made his Broadway debut, in A Circle of Chalk. He appeared in a few more plays on Broadway, and then did a short stint as a radio announcer, when he was hired to appear in The Skin of Our Teeth on Broadway. However, the day after rehearsals began, Randall was called into the army, and served in the Signal Corps for four years, finally discharged as a lieutenant.
He did summer stock and regional theatre, as well as more appearances on Broadway including Antony and Cleopatra, Caesar and Cleopatra, Inherit the Wind, Oh Captain!, and M. Butterfly.
On television, Randall became a regular guest panelist on What's My Line and starred in the show Mr. Peepers. Later came five years with The Odd Couple and then a turn with his own series, The Tony Randall Show, playing "Judge Walter Franklin." In 1977, Randall hosted a series called Live From the Metropolitan Opera. Four years later, he starred as "Sidney Shorr" in the made-for-TV movie Sidney Shorr: A Girl's Best Friend, which evolved into the TV series Love, Sidney.
Randall also made his mark on the big screen, appearing in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, Pillow Talk, The Mating Game, Lover Come Back, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, Robin and the Seven Hoods, Send Me No Flowers, Fluffy, Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask, It Had to Be You, Fatal Instinct, and Down With Love, to name just a few.
In 1991, Randall launched the National Actors Theatre, a not-for-profit subscription-based company formed to bring the great classical repertoire, priced to be more attainable to mass audiences. Among the shows he himself has appeared in with the National Actors Theatre, are The Crucible, A Little Hotel on the Side, The Seagull, Saint Joan, Three Men on a Horse, The Gin Game, The Sunshine Boys, Night Must Fall, and Judgment at Nuremberg.
For more than 20 years, Randall was National Chairman of the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation, and he was violently outspoken against smoking.
He was married to Florence Gibbs Randall for 54 years, until her death in 1992. In 1995, he married Heather Harlan, and they had two children. Randall died on May 17, 2004.
Last updated: June 23, 2004.
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Tony Randall
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Tony Randall
Randall, Tony [né Leonard Rosenberg] (1920–2004), actor and manager. The urbane, genial leading man was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of an art dealer, and was educated at Northwestern and Columbia before studying acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse School. Randall worked in radio before making his New York theatre debut in 1941, and his first noticeable role on Broadway was the sly reporter E. K. Hornbeck in Inherit the Wind (1955), followed by the leading part of Captain Henry St. James who has two wives in two ports in Oh, Captain! (1958). Randall was a regular in no less than six television series over the decades, yet he returned irregularly to the theatre for the next forty years. In 1991 he founded and ran the National Actors Theatre, sometimes appearing in its productions of American and foreign classics.
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Tony Randall
Biography
The son of an Oklahoma art dealer, Tony Randall studied drama at Northwestern, then took further acting training at New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse. He also found time to squeeze in modern dance lessons from Martha Graham. Before he was 22, Randall had shared the stage with the likes of Ethel Barrymore and Katherine Cornell. He interrupted his career during the war to serve as a messenger center officer with the Signal Corps. After the war, Randall put in time as a radio actor, notably in the role of Reggie on the adventure serial I Love a Mystery. Randall's encyclopedic knowledge of radio trivia, indeed, of every kind of trivia, was one of the reasons that he was a much sought-after guest on TV game shows. His Broadway starring appearances in the 1950s included the lead in Oh, Captain, a musical version of the Alec Guinness film The Captain's Paradise, and Mencken-like journalist E.K. Hornbeck in Inherit the Wind. He entered films with 1957's Oh, Men, Oh Women, gaining a following as the pessimistic or drunken comic relief in such fluff as Pillow Talk (1959) and Lover Come Back (1961). His starring films include inconsequential farces like Fluffy (1964) and The Brass Bottle (1964); his favorite film assignment was his virtuoso multi-character work in Seven Faces of Dr. Lao (1964), a film he curiously refuses to discuss for interviews. Randall's extensive television work includes the roles of brash high school history teacher Harvey Weskit in Mr. Peepers (1952-1953) and archetypal neatnik Felix Unger in The Odd Couple (1969-1974). His other TV series include The Tony Randall Show (1976), in which he played a judge, and Love, Sidney (1981-1983) which became a cause célèbre over the issue of his character's homosexuality (or lack of same after the network censors had their way). He made a cameo appearance as himself in Martin Scorsese's 1983 film The King of Comedy.Active in several liberal and humanitarian causes, Randall was never afraid of putting his career on the line to espouse his opinions: after delivering an anti-Vietnam broadside on TV in the late '60s, Randall was yanked from his weekly appearances as an expert on Opera Quiz, an intermission feature on the Texaco Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts (he later claimed that he was paid off on his contract, then donated the money to Eugene McCarthy's presidential campaign). Randall has also been unafraid to offer his anti-tobacco theories, to the extent of threatening job termination to anyone caught smoking in his presence. He also founded The Myasthenia Gravis Foundation; when asked why he chose this cause to support, he quipped, "My agent told me I needed a disease."
In 1991, Randall created the National Actors Theater, a New York-based repertory company devoted to American and British classics. A year or so after the death of his first wife (circa 1995) Tony Randall reluctantly found himself a tabloid press target when he married Heather Harlan a National Actors Theater ingénue nearly fifty years his junior. Unphased by the gossip, Randall and Harlan stayed together and had two children. In December, 2003, Randall had a triple heart bypass - and subsequently contracted pneumonia -- at the New York University Medical Center, where he would remain for the next several months. On May 17, 2004, Randall died in his sleep at the hospital with Harlan by his side. He had made his final film appearance in Kevin Shinick's debut comedy It's About Time, released in 2005.
Many movie and TV fans will most remember Tony Randall for roles in such cult classics as Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, as well as his star turn as Felix Unger in the long running Odd Couple series. But his status is much broader than that of a character player - he remains one of the few performers to gracefully build a legacy for himself in the three "actor's mediums": film, TV, and most of all - stage - where he became a consummate master of George Bernard Shaw and William Shakespeare. His reputation will thus linger in the entertainment world for decades, as a standard by which new generations of comic actors are judged. As if confirming this status, the lights on Broadway dimmed for eight minutes on May 18, 2004 - the evening following Randall's death. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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Tony Randall
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Tony Randall
This article is about the actor. For the director, see Tony Randel. For the song by Bikini Kill, see Reject All American.
| Tony Randall | |
|---|---|
 Randall in 2003 |
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| Born | Arthur Leonard Rosenberg February 26, 1920 Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA |
| Died | May 17, 2004 (aged 84) New York City, New York, USA |
| Occupation | Actor/Comedian |
| Years active | 1940s–2003 |
| Spouse | Florence Gibbs (1942-1992; her death) Heather Harlan (1995-2004; his death; 2 children) |
Tony Randall (February 26, 1920 – May 17, 2004) was an American actor, comic, producer and director.[1][2]
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Contents
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Early years
Randall was born Arthur Leonard Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Julia (née Finston) and Mogscha Rosenberg, an art and antiques dealer.[3] He attended Tulsa Central High School.[4]
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. As 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. Prior to his appearance in "Candida", Randall worked as an announcer at radio station WTAG, Worcester MA.[5]
Career
Randall began his career on the stage, appearing in minor roles on Broadway, and supporting roles on tours. In the 1940s one of his first breaks was playing "Reggie" on the long-running radio series I Love a Mystery. In 1946, he was cast as one of the brothers in a touring production of Katharine Cornell's revival of The Barretts of Wimpole Street.[6] His first major role in a Broadway hit was in Inherit the Wind in 1955 portraying Newspaperman E. K. Hornbeck (based on real life cynic H. L. Mencken). 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 financial 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.
Television
He is perhaps best known for his work on television. His breakthrough role was as history 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.
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. They appeared in character as Felix and Oscar, and the TV spots were filmed on the same set as The Odd Couple.
Subsequently, he starred in The Tony Randall Show, in which he played a Philadelphia judge, and Love, Sidney. In the TV movie that served as the latter 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 what he perceived as censorship (plus the series' lack of acceptance), Randall refused to star in any more television shows.
Randall was the host during the breaks for the October 30 – November 2, 1987 free preview of HBO's short-lived premium channel Festival.[7]
In September 1993, 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 ruined plans for his daughter Edna's wedding, his wife Gloria threw him out of the house for 11 days, which left him no choice but to move back in with Oscar and to help him recover, getting him back in shape after throat cancer surgery left his voice very raspy.
Film
He starred as nearly all of the leading characters in the 1964 cult classic film 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, co-starring Barbara Eden. The film received an Oscar for William J. Tuttle's makeup artistry.
Randall's other film roles included Oh, Men! Oh, Women! (1957) Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957), The Mating Game (1959), Pillow Talk (1959), Let's Make Love (1960), Boys' Night Out (1962), The Brass Bottle (1964), Hello Down There (1969), The King of Comedy (1983) and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990).
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 that size had that 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, with Randall himself playing McGregor's Boss.
Stage
In 1991, he founded the National Actors Theatre (ultimately housed at Pace University in New York City) where starred in The Inspector General(1994), Three Men on a Horse (1993), and gave his final stage performance in Luigi Pirandello's Right You Are (If You Think You Are) in 2003.
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. From 1988 to 1990, he appeared in John Dexter's production of M. Butterfly.
Guest appearances
On September 4, 1955, Randall and Jack Klugman appeared together with Gena Rowlands in the episode "The Pirate's House" of the CBS anthology series, Appointment with Adventure.
Randall 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 appeared frequently on What's My Line?, Password, The Hollywood Squares, and the $10,000 and $20,000 Pyramids. He also sent up his somewhat pompous image with a single appearance as a "contestant" on The Gong Show in 1977.
First aired on October 11th of 1980, Randall was a guest star on the 5th and final season of The Muppet Show. This was the 100th episode of the show.
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 13 September 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.
On November 7, 1994, Randall appeared on the game show Jeopardy!, as part of a Special Edition Celebrity ''Jeopardy!'' episode, playing on behalf of the National Actors Theatre. He came in second place after General Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. and before Actress Stefanie Powers, with a final score of $9,900.[8]
In 1999, Randall was featured in the Simpsons episode "Maximum Homerdrive" (season 10, episode 17). A picture of Randall is seen on a wall of fame in a steakhouse, displaying the only two persons who have finished a 16-lb. steak called "Sir Loinalot".
Other creative activities
In 1973, Tony Randall and Jack Klugman recorded an album called "The Odd Couple Sings" for London Records. Roland Shaw and The London Festival Orchestra and Chorus provided the music and additional vocals.[9] The record was not a chart-topper but is a highly sought-after item for many Odd Couple fans.[citation needed]
A noted raconteur, Randall co-wrote with Mike Mindlin a collection of amusing and sometimes racy show business anecdotes called Which Reminds Me, published in 1989.
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 Tonight Show.
He was an avid fan of the opera and quite knowledgeable on the subject. He was a frequent guest on the Opera Quiz intermission features of the Saturday afternoon broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera.
Activism
Randall was an advocate for the arts. During the summer of 1980, he served as the celebrity host of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra's concerts in Central Park, New York City.
He was also active with liberal political causes. During the U.S. presidential primaries in 1972, he appeared as the featured celebrity at numerous fundraising house-parties for Democratic candidate George McGovern.[10]
Personal life
Randall was married to Florence Gibbs from 1942 until her death from cancer in 1992. The following year, he said, "I wish I believed I'd see my parents again, see my wife again. But I know it's not going to happen."[11] He remarried on November 17, 1995, to Heather Harlan, an intern in one of his 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), and they remained married until his death in 2004.
In his book 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 the two became parents, not everyone was convinced the couple was completely forthright regarding how the babies were conceived.[12]
Death
Randall died in his sleep on May 17, 2004, at NYU Medical Center of complications from pneumonia he contracted following bypass surgery in December 2003. He is interred at the Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.[1][2]
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1957 | Oh, Men! Oh, Women! | Cobbler | |
| 1957 | Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? | Rockwell P. Hunter/Himself/Lover Doll | Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy |
| 1957 | No Down Payment | Jerry Flagg | |
| 1959 | The Mating Game | Lorenzo Charlton | |
| 1959 | Pillow Talk | Jonathan Forbes | Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture |
| 1960 | The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | The King of France | |
| 1960 | Let's Make Love | Alexander Coffman | |
| 1961 | Lover Come Back | Peter 'Pete' Ramsey | Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture |
| 1962 | Boys' Night Out | George Drayton | |
| 1962 | Two Weeks in Another Town | Ad Lib in Lounge | (uncredited) |
| 1963 | Island of Love | Paul Ferris | |
| 1964 | 7 Faces of Dr. Lao | Dr. Lao / Merlin / Pan / Abominable Snowman / Medusa / Giant Serpent | |
| 1964 | The Brass Bottle | Harold Ventimore | |
| 1964 | Robin and the 7 Hoods | Hood | (uncredited) |
| 1964 | Send Me No Flowers | Arnold | |
| 1965 | Fluffy | Prof. Daniel Potter | |
| 1965 | The Alphabet Murders | Hercule Poirot | |
| 1966 | Our Man in Marrakesh | Andrew Jessel | |
| 1969 | Hello Down There | Fred Miller | |
| 1972 | Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) | The Operator | |
| 1979 | Scavenger Hunt | Henry Motley | |
| 1980 | The Gong Show Movie | Performer in Tuxedo | |
| 1980 | Foolin' Around | Peddicord | |
| 1983 | The King of Comedy | Himself | |
| 1986 | My Little Pony: The Movie | The Moochick | (voice) |
| 1987 | The Gnomes' Great Adventure | Gnome King/Ghost of the Black Lake | (voice) |
| 1988 | The Man in the Brown Suit | Rev. Edward Chicester/Miss Wilke/Stewardess | Agatha Christie TV Movie |
| 1989 | It Had to Be You | Milton | |
| 1989 | That's Adequate | Host | |
| 1990 | Gremlins 2: The New Batch | Brain Gremlin | (voice) |
| 1991 | The Boss | Narrator | (voice) |
| 1993 | Fatal Instinct | Judge Skanky | |
| 1996 | How the Toys Saved Christmas | Mr. Grimm | (voice) |
| 2003 | Down with Love | Theodore Banner | |
| 2005 | It's About Time | Mr. Rosenberg |
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.
References
- ^ a b Severo, Richard (19 May 2004). "Tony Randall, 84, Dies; Fussbudget Felix in 'Odd Couple,' He Loved the Stage". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/19/theater/tony-randall-84-dies-fussbudget-felix-in-odd-couple-he-loved-the-stage.html?ref=tony_randall. Retrieved 2010-10-21.
- ^ a b Shales, Tom (10 May 2004). "Tony Randall, Bright, Zestful And Always Endearing.". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38144-2004May18.html. Retrieved 2008-04-26.
- ^ "Tony Randall Biography". filmreference. 2008. http://www.filmreference.com/film/79/Tony-Randall.html. Retrieved 2008-12-11.
- ^ Thomas Conner, "Randall's dreams of acting started in Tulsa", Tulsa World, 19 May 2004.
- ^ Broadcasting magazine, August 18, 1941
- ^ Mosel, "Leading Lady: The World and Theatre of Katharine Cornell
- ^ Festival Free Preview Oct 13-Nov 2, 1987 promotional mailer
- ^ "J! Archive". http://www.j-archive.com/showplayer.php?player_id=6962. Retrieved 2011-10-3.
- ^ Ankeny, Jason. The Odd Couple Sings at Allmusic. Retrieved 2011/12/20.
- ^ Invitation letter for "Together for McGovern at the Garden, June 14, 1972" (producer: Warren Beatty)
- ^ Washington Post, September 25, 2003
- ^ Judith Newman (July 2008). "The Odd Couple: Tony Randall and Heather Randall - May December Romance". Marie Claire. http://www.marieclaire.com/print-this/life/sex/advice/tony-randall-wife. Retrieved 2008-11-22.
Further reading
- Memoirs: Which Reminds Me by Tony Randall and Michael Mindlin. (New York: Delacorte Press, 1989), ISBN 0-385-29785-8
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tony Randall |
- Tony Randall at Find a Grave
- Tony Randall at the Internet Broadway Database
- Tony Randall at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
- Tony Randall at the Internet Movie Database
- Archive of American Television Interview with Tony Randall April 28, 1998
- 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
- Unofficial Odd Couple TV Show Website
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Oxford Companion to American Theatre
The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. Copyright © 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
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