Aging Actor Tony Randall Fantasizes About His Funeral

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGA1QFTLZKD.html ^ | Sep 24, 2003 | Joe Carey

[GluteusMax]

WASHINGTON (AP) - Actor Tony Randall has a fantasy: when he dies President Bush and Vice President Cheney show up to pay their respects but they're turned away - because his family knows he didn't like them. Feeling his own mortality while suffering a cold, Randall, 83, made his remarks as the National Funeral Directors Association announced a new code of ethics for its members, beginning in 2004.

Funerals should be planned as a celebration of life and "a touch of humor doesn't hurt a bit," Randall said.

A comedian, Randall is best known for his role as Felix Unger in the 1970s sitcom "The Odd Couple."

He said his 6-year-old daughter, Julia, is old enough to appreciate the subject of death, and actually revels in it.

"She loves to talk about death," Randall said. "She loves stories about death. If I start a story, she says 'Does anyone die in this?' and I say 'No,' she doesn't want to hear it."

[MasonGal]

Oh - those old Doris Day and Rock Hudson movies (along with old musicals) are what I watch when I need a little change of pace from political shows. It's my "escape"!

I didn't know about Van Johnson, though. OH well...

[passionfruit]

I expect that our President and Vice President will have better and more important things to do when this guy dies.

[shaggy eel]

,,, why is this crap even being quoted? Old actors with a good track record can survive on their past merits. Has beens with few claims to fame seem to have to pass judgement on politics of the day to get attention once they're washed up. Randall probably does lunch with Babs Streisand. This article of Joe Carey's is really overstimating the depth of Randall's importance.

[HitmanLV]

R O'D's remark is comepletly wrong. Felix Unger wasn't gay at all, in fact he was a quiet and understated ladies man on the show.

Often episodes would show his angst over his love life (with his ex-wife or other women) going wrong. He more often than not impressed the ladies, though in a quiet way. There is no question Felix loved women.

R O'D stinks.

[Paul Atreides]

There is nothing like having a Republican President to bring all of the has-beens out of mothballs. Just take someone, who couldn't get casted in a pet food commercial to save his life, let him trash a Republican, and suddenly it is newsworthy.

[Steely Glint]

Tony who?

[tiamat]

I don't know if it is really that the kid "loves death". Lots of kids go through a morbid stage.

My daughter gets odd fascinations: one year she became fascinated with poisonous creatures, and every where we went, every picture she saw, the litany was : " Is it poisonous? HOW poisonous? If it bit me would I die or is there a cure? "

She did the same thing with rabies . Got so that anytime we went to the zoo it would be ; "No lions aren't poisonous. These ones don't have rabies because they get taken care of.... YES! I'm sure! "

Lately her thing has been diseases. And wanting to know symptoms. LONG conversation about Bubonic Plague.....which only lead to parasites, and rats, ( which have rabies)

Really odd, because she is such a cheerful affectionate kid and doesn't come off as ghoulish otherwise!

Tia

[Paul Atreides]

According to people like Rosie, the majority of people are homosexuals, and the minority of people are borderline.

[Steely Glint]

And Van Johnson was gay? Sheesh.

[GSWarrior]

My grandfather was 70 when he fathered my Dad. He wasn't a fem-bot, however.

[sushiman]

Some of my friend's wives used to think I was gay because I was 30 , single , didn't have a steady girlfriend , and was still living with my Mom in the big house on Long Island . Proved them wrong in 1987 when I was 34 when I married my Japanese wife Masumi .

[Yeti]

He is 83 & has a 6 year old daughter? In his dreams.

It's true.

I was at a friend's house once and O'Reilly was on(this was a while back, when he used to be fresh), and he had Tony Randall as a guest, and I was amazed! He was in his eighties and he looked mid/late fifties. He said he takes vitamins. He said he likes to eat gourmet, like in the finest restaurants. He said the secret to his apparent youthfulness is "a young wife." In her early thirties. I'm all for it, so long as it's someone else's daughter, not mine.

In this article the quote comes off odd, but I bet if you could hear him say it, it would probably make a different impression. He's got a classy way about him that's not pretentious at all, very candid and engaging.

I was working at this lady's house today, she is in her nineties, but I would have guessed 65. She golfs and travels. No sign at all of any kind of mental deterioration. Finishes the crossword and the Jumble every morning. Her youngest son is older than my father. Anyway when I was talking about Tony Randall's conversational attitude, I just realized that this woman is the same way, very classy without much pretense or exaggerated affect, and very candid and engaging. And intelligent, both of them.

[HitmanLV]

Haha! Rosie has some problems! Tony Randall & Felix Unger were both straight!

Tony's character in 'Love Sidney' was gay, though.

Tony is a national treasure - Mr. New York, all the way. I will always be a fan.

[aculeus]

He is 83 & has a 6 year old daughter? In his dreams.

He's not dreaming. After his first wife died he married a former theatre intern -- forty (?) years younger -- and impregnated her.

[ChemistCat]

It's the she-loves-death thing I was speaking of. She has been taught to be in love with the fact that she's not going to have a dad before long.

[martin_fierro]

Eh, a pox on both their houses.

[Ditter]

I don't care how virile the old f*art is, he talked bad about President Bush. Maybe the milkman did it.

[Steve Eisenberg]

83 years old with a six year old daughter, eh? Lovely...

Assuming young Mommy married old man Daddy for the inheritance, I suspect she is now earning every penny.