Jack Klugman, 1922-2012

Jack Klugman playing the business manager to Judy Garland in I Could Go On Singing (1963

The death has been announced of actor Jack Klugman, who passed away at his home today at the age of 90. Klugman will probably be best remembered for his role as Oscar Madison, the slob opposite neatnik Felix Unger (Tony Randall) on the 1970s TV version of The Odd Couple. However, he appeared in quite a few well-known movies. I blogged about I Could Go on Singing, in which Judy Garland plays a troubled singer who gave up custody of her son to the boy's father (Dirk Bogarde), a well-to-do British doctor. Klugman plays Garland's business manager.

Another of Klugman's roles I've blogged about was as the partner to police detective Frank Sinatra in The Detective. The third person in the publicity still at left is Al Freeman, Jr., whom you might have seen in this year's TCM Remembers piece. (Interestingly, the actual guily party in the movie is played by William Windom, who also died earlier this year.)

I'm somewhat surprised to see I haven't done a full-length post on The Days of Wine and Roses before. In this movie, Jack Lemmon plays a man married to Lee Remick, in a relationship which sees both partners wind up as alcoholics. Lemmon eventually goes to AA and becomes clean and sober with the help of mentor Klugman.

Finally, in one of his earliest film appearances, Klugman played one of the 12 Angry Men. In fact, Klugman was the last of the surviving jurors.