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`You Again?' Jack Klugman
Returns To Television Comedy
DOWNTOWN DETROIT'S NEWEST RESTAURANT
MICHAEL ELKIN
ENTERTAINMENT NIGHTLY
Special to The Jewish News
H
THE BILLY ROSE QUARTET
ollywood — Forget
Every Monday Evening ... 7 p. m. to 12 Md.
Felix and Oscar. The
oddest couple making
' the rounds these days is Jack
Klugman and TV.
"I never thought I would do
this again," says Klugman,
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DAY.
who is, indeed, doing it
again. What he is doing is
talking to the press about his
1 newest show, You. Again? an
appropriately titled comedy
(
,
i
for an actor who once swore
off the medium as firmly as a
health addict swears off satu-
)
rated fats.
Of course, Klugman is well
familiar with the medium he
once scorned. The four-time
/- Emmy Award winner was the
').._ sloppy Oscar in The Odd
Couple, from 1970 to 1975,
and the meticulous medical
% examiner in Quincy, from
1977 to 1983.
But it was his battles with
what Klugman perceived as
anemic Quincy scripts that
generated headlines and
grief.
"I was glad to get out,"
says Klugman about Quincy,
"because I wanted to go in
the theater. It's my first love,
and I've done only a few
plays."
But television is no longer
the vast wasteland — theater
is. "I did Tribute" — with his
son, Adam, 22, who had been
considered for You. Again? —
"and I did The Odd Couple
again in Australia, a couple
of times." He also did Lyn-
don, a one-man show about
former President Lyndon
Baines Johnson.
His attempts at center
stage made Klugman realize
that the klieg lights don't
burn as brightly as they once
did. "There's nothing out
there," he laments. "There is
no theater. I mean, sure,
there are some plays. I must
have read 40 to 50 plays, and
some of them would have
been hits, comedies. But I
don't want to do a hit. I
worked my buns off, you
know, making money and
getting wealthy so that I
wouldn't have to do a hit. Do
something that I could
stretch in."
Stretch is an important
consideration for Klugman,
who also owns a racehorse,
Jacklin, which has won con-
sistently for him, in addition
to a stable of more than 60
other thoroughbreds. Klug-
man set the record straight
on his priorities. "You think I
do this hard work because I
like it? Horses eat quite a bit
of hay."
Good roles also make for a
bon appetit. "I wanted to do
plays like Death of a Sales-
man, but when I wanted
(that), they said, 'Sorry, Dus-
tin's (Hoffman) going to do
it,' so they took the rights off
the road," says Klugman.
And Klugman went right
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Jack Klugman is back on the tube because he couldn't find
what he wanted in the theater.
into television. But isn't You
Again? just a revamped Odd
Couple? "It's not too far from
Odd Couple," says Klugman,
"except it's a father and son
relationship and love is at
the core of it. But it's not
sentimental love; it's not
Father Knows Best, which
was a marvelous show. I
don't want to knock it, but
we always use that — 'Let's
sit down and have a heart-
to-heart talk.' We don't do
any of that jazz."
He also doesn't expect any
battles with the show's
writers a la Quincy because,
hard as it is to believe, he
feels less knowledgeable
about comedy writing. "I
can't write a funny line; I
can't write jokes," says the
funny Klugman. "I do have a
feeling about drama; I have a
large ego in that area and
say, 'I could even write that?'
But I never say that about a
comedy, because I can't. I
don't know what makes it
funny."
But he does know that
comedy, once written off as a
television staple, will never
need a tombstone. "I never
thought it died," he says.
"Who the hell doesn't want to
laugh?"
Not Klugman. But the kid
who grew up around Seventh
and Morris in South Philly,
who waited tables at Book-
binder's who remembers "Jew
hunts" — "It helped to learn
a few Italian expressions" —
isn't one for gloppy humor,
the kind where, no matter
what, father and son hug
each other as the theme
music closes in on another
segment. "Never. Never," he
says.
He recalls his first Quincy,
which featured a villain who
"was so big that he broke a
girl's back like a twig. And
how do you think we cap-
tured him (on the show)? At
that time, this 55-year-old
chubby Jew punched him in
the mouth.
"And I had an interview
and I said, 'You will never
see that again on Quincy.
And you never did for 149
more shows. And I tell you,
you will not see a hug — at
least not a hug of love."
It hasn't been all hugs and
kisses between Klugman and
Adam through the years. In-
deed, there was talk that
Tribute, a play about a feisty
relationship between a father
and son in which they both
co-starred on the West Coast,
had a bit of autobiography
sewn in to the performance.
The two have grown consid-
erably closer since, Klugman
has admitted.
His own childhood days in
South Philly were filled with
land mines. "I spent so many
years in a gentile neighbor-
hood that to be a Jew wasn't
the greatest thing in the
world."
But Klugman learned later
on the greatness of being
Jewish. "I began to read and
learn about my heritage,"
teaching his children "about
what an absolute honor it is
to be Jewish."
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