American actor best known for his Emmy-winning role as the nitpicking Felix Unger in The Odd Couple, a TV series that ran from 1970-1975. He received the Emmy for The Odd Couple in 1975. Adept at sardonic comedy, his roles were often of playing light drunks, depressives and buddy roles to the hero.
Randall studied at Northwestern University and at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre in New York City.
His Broadway credits included Inherit the Wind in 1955, and Oh, Captain! in 1958. He made his TV debut in One Man’s Family in 1950, and appeared in the Mr. Peepers series from 1952-1955. He has had several television series, The Odd Couple, The Tony Randall Show from 1976-1978, and Love, Sidney 1981-1983. His film credits include, Will Success spoil Rock Hunter? 1957, Let’s Make Love 1960, and King of Comedy 1983. He also directed a Broadway show, Let’s Lunch, in the mid-’80s.
In the early ’90s, he created the National Actor’s Theatre, a repertoire company staging classical theater. He was an avid opera fan.
He married his college sweetheart Florence Mitchell in 1939. He said, “I never saw another girl in my life; she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.” He cared for her during her death of cancer in 1992, after 53 years together. In 1991, Randall met 21-year-old Heather Harlan, a blonde actress when she interned at his theatre company. Lonely after his loss of Florence, he grew close to Heather and their romance blossomed in 1994. Randall and Harlan married on 17 November 1995, New York City. He became a father for the first time when he was 78, thrilled with his daughter Julia Laurette, born on 11 April 1997. A year later Heather gave birth to a son, Jefferson Salvini, on 15 June 1998.
The actor died in his sleep on 17 May 2004 at age 84. The cause of his death was given as “complications from a prolonged illness.” Hospitalized since December 2003 for a triple heart bypass, Randall later contracted pneumonia.
Link to Wikipedia biography