Jack Klugman Biography
Born: April 27, 1922
Commenting on his notorious on-set irascibility in 1977, Jack Klugman replied that he was merely "taking Peter_Falk lessons from Robert Blake," invoking the names of two other allegedly hard-to-please TV stars. Klugman grew up in Philadelphia, and after taking in a 1939 performance by New York's Group Theatre, Klugman decided that an actor's life was right up his alley. He majored in drama at Carnegie Tech and studied acting at the American Theatre Wing before making his (non-salaried) 1949 stage-debut at the Equity Library Theater. While sharing a New York flat with fellow hopeful Charles_Bronson, Klugman took several "grub" jobs to survive, at one point selling his blood for 85 a pint. During television's so-called Golden Age, Klugman appeared in as many as 400 TV shows. He made his film debut in 1956, and three years later co-starred with Ethel_Merman in the original Broadway production of +Gypsy.
In 1964, Klugman won the first of his Emmy awards for his performance in "Blacklist," an episode of the TV series The_Defenders; that same year, he starred in his first sitcom, the 13-week wonder Harris Against the World. Far more successful was his next TV series, The_Odd_Couple, which ran from 1970 through 1974; Klugman won two Emmies for his portrayal of incorrigible slob Oscar Madison (he'd previously essayed the role when he replaced Walter_Matthau in the original Broadway production of the Neil_Simon play). It was during Odd_Couple's run that the network "suits" got their first real taste of Klugman's savage indignation, when he and co-star Tony_Randall threatened to boycott the show unless the idiotic laughtrack was removed (Klugman and Randall won that round; from 1971 onward, Odd_Couple was filmed before a live audience). It was but a foretaste of things to come during Klugman's six-year (1977-83) reign as star of Quincy, M.E.. Popular though Klugman was in the role of the crusading, speechifying LA County Coroner's Office medical examiner R. Quincy, he hardly endeared himself to the producers when he vented his anger against their creative decisions in the pages of TV Guide. Nor was he warmly regarded by the Writer's Guild when he complained about the paucity of high-quality scripts (he wrote several Quincy episodes himself, with mixed results).
After Quincy's cancellation, Klugman starred in the Broadway play I'm Not Rappaport and co-starred with John_Stamos in the 1986 sitcom You Again?. The future of Klugman's career -- and his future, period -- was sorely threatened when he underwent throat surgery in 1989. He'd been diagnosed with cancer of the larynx as early as 1974, but at that time was able to continue working after a small growth was removed. For several years after the 1989 operation, however, Klugman was unable to speak at all. Jack Klugman has since appeared in an Odd_Couple reunion special, reciting his lines with some difficulty in a hoarse whisper. Hal Erickson, Rovi
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