Tony and Me

The close professional relationship between Jack Klugman and Tony Randall has long been famous, but the details of their personal friendship have never been revealed until now. In Tony and Me by Jack Klugman with Burton Rocks the depth of this friendship is fully explored and touchingly revealed for the very first time. In his tribute, Klugman provides the ultimate insider’s view of a relationship that went well beyond what the public saw in The Odd Couple.

The close professional relationship between Jack Klugman and Tony Randall has long been famous, but the details of their personal friendship have never been revealed until now. In Tony and Me by Jack Klugman with Burton Rocks the depth of this friendship is fully explored and touchingly revealed for the very first time. In his tribute, Klugman provides the ultimate insider’s view of a relationship that went well beyond what the public saw in The Odd Couple. Tony and Me follows both actors from their early days of stage and television to the “Camelot” of The Odd Couple; from Klugman’s fight with invasive throat cancer to Randall’s struggle to open a National Actors Theatre. What emerges is a touching portrait of a legendary professional relationship that, in the end, became deeply personal. Tony and Me also has a foreword by Garry Marshall and includes over fifty photographs, many from Jack and Tony’s private collection, as well as an included DVD of never-before-seen out takes from The Odd Couple. This final component makes Tony and Me a great experience not only for diehard fans and history buffs, but for anyone in search of a good laugh.

Three-time Emmy Award winner JACK KLUGMAN was best known as ‘Oscar Madison’ in the TV series The Odd Couple and as the star of Quincy, M.E. For over fifty years, Klugman has made countless stage, film and television appearances that have made him one of America’s most loved and respected actors. Born on April 27, 1922, in Philadelphia, PA, the youngest of six children, Klugman knew from an early age he wanted to be an actor. “But I kept it to myself” Klugman recounts.“I grew up in a pretty rough neighborhood and to tell the kids around the corner that I wanted to be an actor would’ve been suicide. I might as well have told them I wanted to be a florist.” Following his brief WWII army service, Klugman used the GI bill to attend Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh where he was told he was “better suited to be a truck driver.” After two years there, Klugman left Carnegie Tech and hustled small roles and summer stock parts until his first big break on the New York stage came in 1959 with Gypsy, opposite Ethel Merman in Gypsy. Since then his numerous film appearances include: (1956), Twelve Angry Men (1957), Cry Terror (1958), Days of Wine and Roses 1962), The Detective (1968), Goodbye Columbus (1969), Who Says I Can’t Ride a Rainbow, with Judy Garland (1971), The Two Minute Warning (1976), and Dear God (1996). He also appeared several times on Rod Sterling’s classic television anthology, The Twilight Zone. In 1971, he landed his big break in “The Odd Couple” produced by Garry Marshall (Happy Days, Mork and Mindy, Laverne and Shirley) and opposite Tony Randall. Since that time, Klugman’s portrayal of Oscar Madison in the series has become the standard by which all other characterizations are inevitably judged. Klugman went on to have seven successful seasona with his next television show, Quincy M.E., in which he starred as a muckracking coroner long twenty five years before C.S.I. ever hit the tube. In 1989, at he peak of his career, Klugman was diagnosed with throat cancer and lost half his larynx to a devastating surgery. Without any speaking voice at all, the actor was left without any hope of a career. It was then that fellow Odd Couple star Tony Randall reappeared to support his old friend and eventually coaxed him back to the Broadway stage in benefit performance for Randall’s National Actors Theatre. “I never would’ve gotten my career back without Tony.” Klugman is fond of saying. “ I owe him the world”. Mr. Klugman’s work earned him many awards, including three Emmies, his first for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series for The Defenders, and two for Best Actor in a Comedy Series for The Odd Couple. Other awards include a Golden Globe award for The Odd Couple, a Tony award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical for Gypsy, and even a Chloe award for his role in an Eagle Brand Snacks commercial in which he appeared again with Tony Randall. It is theatre, however, that has endured for Mr. Klugman and he is currently touring with a one man show about his life as well as appearing regionally in “The Value of Names” by Jeffrey Sweet--a powerful play about a great friendship destroyed by the Blacklist, “When I’m in the theatre, it’s the only time I really feel at home in the world. After all these years, its still the reason I wake me up in the morning” Klugman says. “and at age 83, it’s been a lot of mornings.” Jack Klugman passed away on December 24, 2012.