Jack Klugman

Jack Klugman (born Jacob Joachim Klugman on April 27, 1922 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American television and movie actor.

Klugman began acting after serving in the United States Army during World War II. A struggling actor in New York City, Klugman was a roommate of another starving actor, Charles Bronson, before the two went onto bigger and better things. He starred in several classic films including 12 Angry Men (which he says is his favorite), Goodbye, Columbus (ironically featuring a protagonist named Neill Klugman, whom Jack himself did not play), and Days of Wine and Roses. He also won an Emmy Award for his work on the television series The Defenders and appeared in four episodes of the acclaimed series The Twilight Zone. Klugman says his greatest thrill was appearing with Humphrey Bogart and Henry Fonda in a 1954 live television broadcast of The Petrified Forest.

He is best known for his starring roles in two popular television series of the 1970s and early 1980s: The Odd Couple (1970–1975) and Quincy, M.E. (1976–1983). He won two Emmy Awards for The Odd Couple.

In the early 1990s, Klugman lost a vocal cord to cancer, but has continued acting on stage and on television. He survived, though the effect of the cancer on his voice is significant, and he now has a very quiet and rasping voice. Klugman admits that for many years he was a heavy smoker. During the 1990s his television credits included a guest starring role in Diagnosis Murder. His cancer was written into his character, where Klugman played a detective who had terminal cancer and had to solve his last case before he died.

He is the father of two children: Adam and David, both from his marriage to Match Game regular Brett Somers. Klugman and Somers were married in 1953, separated in 1974, but were never divorced. (It was Klugman, who appeared on the first week of the CBS Match Game revival in 1973, who asked the show's production company that Somers do a guest slot on the panel. It lasted nine years.)

Klugman has lived with Peggy Crosby (the ex-wife of Bing Crosby's son, Phillip Crosby) since 1988.

In 2005, Klugman published Tony And Me: A Story of Friendship, a book about his long friendship with his Odd Couple co-star Tony Randall. Klugman said that Randall was the best friend he ever had. He talked of their long working relationship and how good Randall had been to him after his cancer operation.

With the death of Jack Warden on July 19, 2006, he is the only one of the twelve main stars of 12 Angry Men who is still alive.

Thoroughbred horse racing

Klugman's character on the Odd Couple television show was a fan of thoroughbred horse racing. In real life, Klugman is a horse racing fan as well. One of his horses, Jaklin Klugman was voted the 1980 California Horse of the Year after winning several races including the 1980 California Derby and Jerome Handicap and finishing third in the Kentucky Derby.

Filmography

• Grubstake (1952)
• Time Table (1956)
• 12 Angry Men (1957)
• Cry Terror! (1958)
• A Passage for Trumpet episode of The Twilight Zone (1960)
• A Game of Pool episode of The Twilight Zone (1961)
• Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
• The Yellow Canary (1963)
• I Could Go On Singing (1963)
• Act One (1963)
• Death Ship episode of The Twilight Zone (1963)
• In Praise of Pip episode of The Twilight Zone (1963)
• Hail, Mafia (1965)
• The Detective (1968)
• The Split (1968)
• Goodbye, Columbus (1969)
• Who Says I Can't Ride a Rainbow? (1971)
• Two-Minute Warning (1976)
• Challenge of the Tiger (1980)
• Dear God (1996)
• Scene Smoking: Cigarettes, Cinema & the Myth of Cool (2001) (documentary)
• When Do We Eat? (2005)

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