Tony Randall

Tony Randall was born on February 26, 1920 in Tulsa, Oklahoma as Aryeh Leonard Rosenberg. He attended Tulsa Central High School and later Northwestern University and New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. After graduating, he starred in two plays: George Bernard Shaw's 'Candida' alongside Jane Cowl and Emlyn Williams' 'The Corn Is Green' alongside Ethel Barrymore. After four years with the United States Army Signal Corps in World War II, Randall found work at Montgomery County's Olney Theatre before heading back to New York City to continue his acting career.

During the 1940s, Randall appeared mostly in supporting roles in Broadway plays.

Randall's first major television role was as a history teacher on Mister Peepers (1952); he joined the cast in 1955.

After the series ended, he had numerous guest spots on such shows as The United States Steel Hour (1953), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962), Love, American Style (1969), and Here's Lucy (1968).

Randall appeared in both the 1954 stage version of Edward Chodorov's "Oh, Men! Oh, Women! as well as the 1957 screen adaptation but in different roles.

He was given his first leading role in 1955 with 'Inherit the Wind'.

His first role in a feature film came about in 1957, playing a supporting character in the Ginger Rogers vehicle Oh, Men! Oh, Women! (1957).

The same year, he received a Golden Globe nomination for his role as the titular writer for television advertising in the satirical comedy Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957).

Randall managed to nab a Tony Award nomination for his starring role in 1958's 'Oh, Captain!', although the play itself bombed.

Randall also lent his support to the three famous Doris Day-Rock Hudson pairings Pillow Talk (1959), Lover Come Back (1961), and Send Me No Flowers (1964), securing Golden Globe nominations for the former two.

Randall worked quite prolifically throughout the 1960s; notable roles include a public relations employee in the Marilyn Monroe romantic musical The Billionaire (1960), seven quite different characters in the oddball 7 Faces of Dr.

Lao (1964), iconic detective Hercule Poirot in The Alphabet Murders (1965), an architect who inadvertently releases a Djinn in the fantasy The Brass Bottle (1964), and a man who lives in an underwater house with his family in the adventure Hello Down There (1969).

He wouldn't return to TV in a major role until 1970, when he played sardonic neat freak Felix Unger in ABC's The Odd Couple (1970) opposite Jack Klugman.

Both during and after his stints on TV, Randall had small roles in a few well-known films such as Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask (1972), The King of Comedy (1982), My Little Pony: The Movie (1986), and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990). He continued to guest-star on television shows, but would never return to the small screen as a leading man. He also continued to work on-stage, albeit infrequently.

He was originally cast as the voice of "Templeton the Rat" in the movie Charlotte's Web (1973) without an audition. When Joseph Barbera realized he wasn't right for the voice, they paid him and hired Paul Lynde instead.

He earned Emmy nominations for each season, finally winning in 1975 for its last.

He later starred in The Tony Randall Show (1976) as a Philadelphia judge, and Love, Sidney (1981) as a gay artist. The former earned him one Golden Globe nomination and the latter earned him two.

In an effort to bring back classic theater to Broadway, he founded and was artistic director of the nonprofit National Actors Theatre in 1991, using $1 million of his own money and $2 million from corporations and foundations.

He reunited with Jack Klugman for the 1993 TV movie The Odd Couple: Together Again (1993).

He is survived by his wife, Heather Harlan, whom he wed in 1995, and their two children.

Suffered from tinnitus, a chronic ringing in the ears. In 1996, he and Jerry Stiller appeared in a public service announcement for the American Tinnitus Association, encouraging viewers to seek diagnosis and treatment.

First child, Julia Laurette Randall, was born on 11 April 1997; she was named after his mother Julia and actress Laurette Taylor, whom Randall said was "the best actress I've ever seen in my life", and second child, Jefferson Salvini Randall, was born on June 15, 1998; he was named for comedic actor Joseph Jefferson and Italian tragic actor Tommasso Salvini.

Randall graduated from Tulsa Central High School but dropped out of Northwestern University in Illinois, majoring in speech and drama, in order to study acting with Sanford Meisner and dancer Martha Graham at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, under the direction of legendary acting coach Sanford Meisner. Later, he was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters degree in 2002 from Pace University.

A liberal Democrat, in September 2003 he joked in a speech that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney would be turned away if they tried to attend his funeral.

Randall passed away in his sleep on May 17, 2004 of pneumonia he had contracted following coronary bypass surgery in December 2003.