Were Tony Randall and Jack Klugman anything like the characters they play on the show?
In a 1996 chat on Nick at Nite Online, Jack Klugman was asked, “How close was the character you played to your real self?” He responded, “Too close for comfort. If you could see my condominium right now, you would say ‘Oscar Madison lives here.’ I’m messy. I’m not dirty. I shower a lot. Let’s say, I like being comfortable.” This was a question that annoyed Tony Randall. In a 1993 Entertainment Weekly interview, he responded, “I’ve been asked that same stupid question in every single interview I’ve done since 1970-that’s about 25,000 interviews […] No. I’m nothing like Felix at all.” However, he was like Felix in some ways. Some of Tony and Jack’s real life interests were incorporated into their characters, such as Tony’s love of opera and Jack’s love of betting on horses. In a 2005 interview with Larry King, Heather Randall said of her late husband, “[H]e was kind of the Felix character. You know, like when I was pregnant, he had stomach pains. That kind of thing.
