Tony Randall
Tony Randall (February 26, 1920 – May 17, 2004) was an American actor. He was born as Arthur Leonard Rosenberg in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the only child of Mogscha Rosenberg, an art and antiques dealer, and his wife, Julia, née Finston.
The forename "Arthur" was forsaken long before he adopted his stage name. Over his long career, Randall was nominated for five Golden Globe awards and two Emmys, winning one Emmy in 1975 for his work in the sitcom The Odd Couple.
He was the founder of National Actors Theatre in New York City, and also starred in many plays and popular movies, including Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957), Pillow Talk (1959), The King of Comedy (1983), and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990). Randall also starred in several television shows, including The Odd Couple (playing Felix Unger) and The Tony Randall Show. He also starred in Love, Sidney, the first television show to feature a gay lead character (however, this was never directly referenced in the show).
He was a frequent and popular guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, talking of his love of opera (claiming it was due in no small part to the salaciousness of many of the plotlines), chiding Johnny Carson for his chain-smoking, and generally being fastidious and fussy, much like (and preceding) 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 "to retain everything you were supposed to have learned in elementary school".
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 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 Carson show.
He was married to Florence Gibbs from 1942 until her death from cancer in 1992, and, from November 17, 1995 until his death, to Heather Harlan, with whom he had two children, Julia Laurette Randall (b. 1997) and Jefferson Salvini Randall (b. 1998).
Tony Randall died in his sleep of complications from pneumonia at the age of 84, which he contracted following bypass surgery in December 2003.
His final film appearance was in Down with Love starring Renée Zellweger and Ewan McGregor, an affectionate send-up of the Pillow Talk and Rock Hunter type of films that helped establish Randall's career.