Emmy-winning 'Odd Couple' star, dies

NEW YORK - Tony Randall, the comic actor best-known for playing fastidious photographer Felix Unger on "The Odd Couple," has died. He was 84.

Randall, who developed pneumonia after undergoing heart bypass surgery in December, died in his sleep Monday night at NYU Medical Center, according to his publicity firm, Springer Associates. His wife, Heather Harlan Randall - who had made him a father for the first time at age 77 - was by his side.

Randall was hospitalized after starring for a month in "Right You Are," a revival of Luigi Pirandello's play by the National Actors Theatre, which he founded.

Broadway's marquee lights were being dimmed in his honor Tuesday night.

"Tony Randall's passion for live theatre was unmatched," Jed Bernstein, president of the League of American Theatres and Producers, said in a statement. "He was a vociferous advocate for the proposition that serious plays are the lifeblood of our culture."

Randall joked in September about how he envisioned his funeral: President Bush and Vice President Cheney would show up to pay their respects, but they'd be turned away because his family knows he didn't like them. During a speech to the National Funeral Directors Association, he said funerals should be planned as a celebration of life and "a touch of humor doesn't hurt a bit."

Randall won an Emmy for playing Unger opposite Jack Klugman's Oscar Madison on the sitcom based on Neil Simon's play and movie. The show ran from 1970-75, but Randall won after it had been canceled, prompting him to quip at the awards ceremony: "I'm so happy I won. Now if I only had a job."

Before that, Randall was best-known as the fussbudget pal in several Rock Hudson-Doris Day movies, including 1959's "Pillow Talk" and 1961's "Lover Come Back."

After "The Odd Couple," Randall had two short-lived sitcoms, "The Tony Randall Show," from 1976-78, and "Love, Sidney," from 1981-83.

In an effort to bring classic theater back to Broadway, Randall founded and was artistic director of the nonprofit National Actors Theatre in 1991.

The actor also was socially active, lobbying against smoking in public places, marching in Washington against apartheid in the '80s, and helping raise money for AIDS research in the '90s.

Born Leonard Rosenberg on Feb. 26, 1920, Randall was drawn as a teenager to roadshows that came through his hometown of Tulsa, Okla.

He was married to his college sweetheart, Florence Randall, for 54 years until she died of cancer in 1992.

In 1995, Randall married Heather Harlan, who was 50 years his junior.

He met her through his National Actors Theatre, where she was an intern; then-New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani performed the ceremony.

The couple had two children: 7-year-old Julia Laurette and 5-year-old Jefferson Salvini. Randall told AP Radio that he couldn't believe he'd become a father for the first time in his 70s.