Jack Klugman: Tony Randall's costar in TV's The Odd Couple, star of Quincy (the forerunner of today's forensics series), and a tough yet likeable juror in 12 Angry Men.
Check out the write-up in The New York Times; it's quite an interesting read.
With E.G. Marshall (left) in 12 Angry Men
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/25/arts/television/jack-klugman-stage-and-screen-actor-is-dead-at-90.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0[/url]
Mr. Klugman’s path to success was serendipitous. He was born in Philadelphia on April 27, 1922, the youngest of six children of immigrants from Russia. Most sources indicate that his name at birth was Jacob, though Mr. Klugman said in an interview that the name on his birth certificate is Jack.
His father, Max, was a house painter who died when Jack was 12. His mother, Rose, was a milliner who worked out of the family home in hardscrabble South Philadelphia, where Jack grew up shooting pool, rolling dice and playing the horses. His interest in acting was kindled at 14 or 15 when his sister took him to a play, “One Third of a Nation,” a “living newspaper” production of the Federal Theater Project about life in an American slum; the play made the case for government housing projects.
“I just couldn’t believe the power of it,” he said of the production in an interview in 1998 for the Archive of American Television, crediting the experience for instilling in him his social-crusading impulse. “I wanted to be a muckraker.”
After a stint in the Army — he was discharged because of a kidney ailment — Mr. Klugman returned to Philadelphia but racked up a debt to loan sharks who were so dangerous that he left town. He landed in Pittsburgh, where he auditioned for the drama department at Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University).
“They said: ‘You’re not suited to be an actor. You’re more suited to be a truck driver,’ ” he recalled. But this was 1945, the war was just ending and there was a dearth of male students, so he was accepted. “There were no men,” he said. “Otherwise they wouldn’t have taken me in.”
His credits, as per IMDB:
[url]http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001430/[/url]
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