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Tony Randall, 1920–2004
BY JOYCE MILLMAN
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In 1985, in a moment of insanity, I wrote a cover story for the Phoenix titled " The 10 Most Beautiful Men on TV. " I confess now that the main reason I did that piece was because I wanted an excuse to write about Tony Randall. The concept of the piece was ironic, but the sentiments were not. I had been obsessively watching reruns of The Odd Couple (one of the best sit-coms of all time), and I wanted to salute the depth of Randall’s portrayal of neurotic, divorced roomie Felix Unger. " Randall turned Jack Lemmon’s movie Felix — a whiny bundle of nerves — into a whole person ... opinionated, vain, confident, and hilariously humorless, " I wrote. " Tony ... struck a blow for all those people who just couldn’t loosen up; he turned brains, artistic appreciation, and fastidiousness — long favorite targets of sit-com ridicule — into heroic qualities. " Randall’s Felix Unger was one of the most influential TV characters in history. What is Frasier but The Odd Couple with two Felixes? What is Queer Eye for the Straight Guy but The Odd Couple with five Felixes? And while there was much more to Tony Randall than Felix, there was a lot of Felix in Randall. When he won the best-actor Emmy in 1975, right after ABC cancelled The Odd Couple, Randall made the quintessential passive-aggressive Felix acceptance speech: " I sure am glad I won! Now, if I only had a job. " Born Leonard Rosenberg in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1920, Randall studied drama at Northwestern and Columbia, worked in radio, theater, and TV (he played Wally Cox’s pal Harvey on Mr. Peepers) and was the fussy best friend in Doris Day–Rock Hudson movies like Pillow Talk and Lover Come Back. (And what was David Hyde Pierce’s turn in the Doris-and-Rock spoof Down with Love but a homage to Tony Randall?) An energetic proponent of live theater, he realized a lifelong dream in 1991 when he founded the National Actors Theatre, a New York–based nonprofit company, for which he served as artistic director and also acted and directed. Randall made tabloid headlines in 1997 when he became a first-time father at the age of 77. (He and his wife, Heather Harlan, 50 years his junior, had a second child in 1998.) Randall died in his sleep Monday night. He was 84. And he was beautiful.
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