Jack Klugman Too Soon

Jack Klugman who played the sloppy sportswriter Oscar Madison on TV’s “The Odd Couple” past away Christmas Eve.

Klugman died Monday at age 90 in suburban Northridge with his wife at his side. His sons called on his fans to embrace their father’s tenacious and positive spirit.

“He had a great life and he enjoyed every moment of it, and he would encourage others to do the same,” son Adam Klugman said.

The cause of Klugman’s death was not immediately known. Adam Klugman said his father had been slowing down in recent years, but wasn’t battling cancer, which robbed him of his voice in the 1980s. Klugman taught himself to speak again, and kept working.

He remained popular for decades simply by playing the type of man you could imagine running into at a bar or riding on a subway with – gruff, but down-to-earth, his tie stained and a little loose, a racing form under his arm, a cigar in hand during the days when smoking was permitted.

Off-screen, Klugman owned racehorses and enjoyed gambling, although acting remained his passion.

Despite his on-screen wars with Tony Randall’s neat-freak character Felix Unger on “Odd Couple,” the show created a friendship between the men that endured after the series ended.

When Randall died in 2004 at age 84, Klugman told CNN: “A world without Tony Randall is a world that I cannot recognize.”

The “Odd Couple,” which ran from 1970 to 1975, was based on Neil Simon’s play about mismatched roommates – divorced New Yorkers who end up living together. The comedy came from their opposite personalities – Klugman playing a writer whose sloppiness consistently irritated the Randall’s fussy photographer character. The pairing was so good, the show didn’t need constant help from the writers.