Toyota to pay big to settle suits

Toyota Motor Corp., moving to put years of legal problems behind it, has agreed to pay more than $1 billion to settle dozens of lawsuits relating to sudden acceleration.

The proposed deal, filed Wednesday in federal court, would be among the largest ever paid out by an automaker. It applies to numerous suits claiming economic damages caused by safety defects in the automaker's vehicles, but does not cover dozens of personal injury and wrongful-death suits that are still pending around the nation.

The suits were filed over the last three years by Toyota and Lexus owners who claimed that the value of their vehicles had been hurt by the potential for defects, including floor mats that could cause the vehicles to surge out of control.

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In addition, Toyota said it is close to settling suits filed by the Orange County district attorney and a coalition of state attorneys general who had accused the automaker of deceptive business practices. The costs of those agreements would be included in a $1.1-billion charge the Japanese automaker said it will take against earnings to cover the actions.

"We concluded that turning the page on this legacy legal issue through the positive steps we are taking is in the best interests of the company, our employees, our dealers and, most of all, our customers," Christopher Reynolds, Toyota's chief counsel in the U.S., said in a statement.

Toyota's lengthy history of sudden acceleration was the subject of a series of Los Angeles Times articles in 2009, after a horrific crash outside San Diego that took the life of an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer and his family.

Under terms of the agreement, which has not yet been approved in court, Toyota would install brake override systems in numerous models and provide cash payments from a $250-million fund to owners whose vehicles cannot be modified to incorporate that safety measure.

In addition, the automaker plans to offer extended repair coverage on throttle systems in 16 million vehicles and offer cash payments from a separate $250-million fund to Toyota and Lexus owners who sold their vehicles or turned them in at the end of a lease in 2009 or 2010. The total value of the settlement could reach $1.4 billion, according to Steve Berman, the lead plaintiff attorney in the case.

The lawsuits, filed over the last several years, had been seeking class certification.

News of the agreement comes scarcely a week after Toyota agreed to pay a record $17.35-million fine to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for failing to report a potential floor mat defect in a Lexus SUV. Those come on top of almost $50 million in fines paid by Toyota for other violations related to sudden acceleration since 2010.

The massive settlement does not, however, put Toyota's legal woes to rest. The automaker still faces numerous injury and wrongful death claims around the country, including a group of cases that have been consolidated in federal court in Santa Ana, and other cases awaiting trial in Los Angeles County.

The first of the federal cases, involving a Utah man who was killed in a Camry that slammed into a wall in 2010, is slated for trial in mid-February.

The California cases are set to begin in April, among them a suit involving a 66-year-old Upland woman who was killed after her vehicle allegedly reached 100 miles per hour and slammed into a tree.

Edgar Heiskell III, a West Virginia attorney who has a dozen pending suits against Toyota, said he is preparing to go to trial this summer in a case that involved a Flint, Mich., woman who was killed when her 2005 Camry suddenly accelerated near her home.

"We are proceeding with absolute confidence that we can get our cases heard on the merits and that we expect to prove defects in Toyota's electronic control system," he said.

Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said the settlement would have no bearing on the personal injury cases.

"All carmakers face these kinds of suits," he said. "We'll defend those as we normally would."

The giant automaker's sudden acceleration problems first gained widespread attention after the August 2009 crash of a Lexus ES outside San Diego.

That accident set off a string of recalls, an unprecedented decision to temporarily stop sales of all Toyota vehicles and a string of investigations, including a highly unusual apology by Toyota President Akio Toyoda before a congressional committee. Eventually Toyota recalled more than 10 million vehicles worldwide and has since spent huge sums — estimated at more than $2 billion, not including Wednesday's proposed settlement — to repair both its automobiles and public image.

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A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Dec. 27

Our good friends at Google run a daily puzzle challenge and asked us to help get them out to the geeky masses. Each day’s puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. Each morning at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time you’ll see a new puzzle posted here.

SPOILER WARNING:
We leave the comments on so people can work together to find the answer. As such, if you want to figure it out all by yourself, DON’T READ THE COMMENTS!

Also, with the knowledge that because others may publish their answers before you do, if you want to be able to search for information without accidentally seeing the answer somewhere, you can use the Google-a-Day site’s search tool, which will automatically filter out published answers, to give you a spoiler-free experience.

And now, without further ado, we give you…

TODAY’S PUZZLE:

Note: Ad-blocking software may prevent display of the puzzle widget.

Ken is a husband and father from the San Francisco Bay Area, where he works as a civil engineer. He also wrote the NYT bestselling book "Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects for Dads and Kids to Share."

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Just A Minute With: Hugh Jackman on “Les Miserables”

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Australian actor Hugh Jackman says his background in musical theater and action films made him feel “like all the stars were aligning” when he took on the starring role of Jean Valjean in the new movie version of “Les Miserables.”

Jackman, 44, perhaps best known for his portrayal of Wolverine in the “X-Men” movie franchise, spoke to Reuters about the demands of the role in British director Tom Hooper‘s adaptation of the musical sensation that opened when Jackman was still a teenager.

Q. This role seemed tailor-made for you.

A. “It certainly for me felt like the biggest challenge I have had. I have never been on the front foot so much for a part. I was quite aggressive going for it.

“It felt like the right time. Once I got the part I will admit to you there were times when I went, ‘Oh maybe I have bit off more than I can chew here,’ because it is a pretty daunting role in every way – physically, vocally, emotionally.”

Q. Has all your Broadway experience – and movies – led you to this role?

A. “I never expected this trajectory of having movies, action movies, which was such a weird thing for me, and musicals, which was also a weird thing for me. I was a theater graduate … . So I have for a long time wanted to put the two together. And I waited for the right thing – and when this one came up I was like, ‘Oh my God, I didn’t have to think twice about it.’ So, I suppose it does feel like all the stars were aligning, and thank God it took them 27 years to make it.”

Q. Most actors downplay the Oscars, and this movie is getting some buzz. What do you think?

A. “Of course it is every actor‘s dream. In our business it is the highest currency there is. It is a dream.

“For me, I didn’t grow up thinking I was going to be an actor, let alone hoping one day to win an Oscar – that was never part of my reality. I went to acting school when I was 22. I don’t even remember thinking about being a professional actor until I was 30 and in drama school.”

Q. What did you have to do to convince Tom Hooper to give you the part?

A. “What I needed to convince him (of) was that it is possible for the lyrics of the song to feel natural. I know he was skeptical of that whole feeling and was nervous, rightly, about whether a musical could really move people and make non-musical lovers feel things, and feel at home with the sung form, because it is highly unnatural right? … . I knew I needed to convince him that the emotion and the story, the thoughts of the character, could feel natural.”

Q. You had that much pressure while in rehearsals?

A. “Your voice had to be as good on the first as the ninth (take). Because, say he (Hooper) got the camera move, or the acting was right on the ninth. You can’t pull the vocal from another, or cut to the second one, because the rhythm would be different. So I think he was testing stamina as well. And pitch I am sure, to see if people could sing in tune.”

Q. Do you feel the responsibility to the ‘Les Mis’ fans?

A: “Completely. I am part of that musical theater world and I know there are some roles that are held up there. And there are people who play those roles who are right up there. It turned out I was acting opposite one of them, Colm Wilkinson, who originally created the role and was astonishing. It actually was really great having him there because there is probably, in terms of the ghosts of Valjean, no one more powerful … than him.”

Q. You are known as being one of the most sincere Hollywood stars. Who is your role model for this humble quality?

A. “My father has a lot of very humble qualities. He is more humble than I am. He is very quiet. If I think about it, there are many Jean Valjean qualities about my father. He has never said a bad word about anyone, he is a religious man in the more traditional sense, and yet he will never really talk about it. He is a man of action.”

(Reporting By Christine Kearney; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Xavier Briand)

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Elwood V. Jensen, Pioneer in Breast Cancer Treatment, Dies at 92

Elwood V. Jensen, a medical researcher whose studies of steroid hormones led to new treatments for breast cancer that have been credited with saving or extending hundreds of thousands of lives, died on Dec. 16 in Cincinnati. He was 92.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, his son, Thomas Jensen, said.

In 2004 Dr. Jensen received the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, one of the most respected science prizes in the world.

When Dr. Jensen started his research at the University of Chicago in the 1950s, steroid hormones, which alter the functioning of cells, were thought to interact with cells through a series of chemical reactions involving enzymes.

However, Dr. Jensen used radioactive tracers to show that steroid hormones actually affect cells by binding to a specific receptor protein inside them. He first focused on the steroid hormone estrogen.

By 1968, Dr. Jensen had developed a test for the presence of estrogen receptors in breast cancer cells. He later concluded that such receptors were present in about a third of those cells.

Breast cancers that are estrogen positive, meaning they have receptors for the hormone, can be treated with medications like Tamoxifen or with other methods of inhibiting estrogen in a patient’s system, like removal of the ovaries. Women with receptor-rich breast cancers often go into remission when estrogen is blocked or removed.

By the mid-1980s, a test developed by Dr. Jensen and a colleague at the University of Chicago, Dr. Geoffrey Greene, could be used to determine the extent of estrogen receptors in breast and other cancers. That test became a standard part of care for breast cancer patients.

Scientists like Dr. Pierre Chambon and Dr. Ronald M. Evans, who shared the 2004 Lasker prize with Dr. Jensen, went on to show that many types of receptors exist. The receptors are crucial components of the cell’s control system and transmit signals in an array of vital functions, from the development of organs in the womb to the control of fat cells and the regulation of cholesterol.

Dr. Jensen’s work also led to the development of drugs that can enhance or inhibit the effects of hormones. Such drugs are used to treat prostate and other cancers.

Elwood Vernon Jensen was born in Fargo, N.D., on Jan. 13, 1920, to Eli and Vera Morris Jensen. He majored in chemistry at what was then Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio, and had begun graduate training in organic chemistry at the University of Chicago when World War II began.

Dr. Jensen wanted to join the Army Air Forces, but his poor vision kept him from becoming a pilot. During the war he synthesized poison gases at the University of Chicago, exposure to which twice put him in the hospital. His work on toxic chemicals, he said, inspired him to pursue biology and medicine.

Dr. Jensen studied steroid hormone chemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology on a Guggenheim Fellowship after the war. While there, he climbed the Matterhorn, one of the highest peaks in the Alps, even though he had no mountaineering experience. He often equated his successful research to the novel approach taken by Edward Whymper, the first mountaineer to reach the Matterhorn’s summit. Mr. Whymper went against conventional wisdom and scaled the mountain’s Swiss face, after twice failing to reach the summit on the Italian side.

Dr. Jensen joined the University of Chicago as an assistant professor of surgery in 1947, working closely with the Nobel laureate Charles Huggins. He became an original member of the research team at the Ben May Laboratory for Cancer Research (now the Ben May Department for Cancer Research) in 1951, and became the director after Dr. Huggins stepped down.

He came to work at the University of Cincinnati in 2002, and continued to do research there until last year.

His first wife, the former Mary Collette, died in 1982. In addition to his son, Dr. Jensen is survived by his second wife, the former Hiltrud Herborg; a daughter, Karen C. Jensen; a sister, Margaret Brennan; two grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Dr. Jensen’s wife was found to have breast cancer in 2005. She had the tumor removed, he said in an interview, but tested positive for the estrogen receptor and was successfully treated with a medication that prevents estrogen synthesis.

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In Gabon, Lure of Ivory Proves Hard to Resist

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

SEIZED AND DESTROYED Gabon burned 10,000 pounds of ivory in June to show its commitment against poaching, but elephants are still being slaughtered. More Photos »

OYEM, Gabon — This lush country, often called a “forest republic,” used to stand proudly apart from its shaky neighbors, like the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic, tropical disaster zones where state failure, rebel marauders and loose weapons conspired to spell doom for endangered wildlife.

The Price of Ivory

This is the second installment in a series of articles exploring how the surge in poaching of African elephants both feeds off and fuels instability on the continent.

Gabon’s government, blessed with billions of dollars of oil money and miles and miles of virgin rain forest, has made many of the right moves to protect its animals by setting aside chunks of land for national parks, actually paying wildlife rangers on time (a rarity in Africa) and recently destroying a towering mountain of ivory in a statement of its refusal to look the other way.

But as the price of ivory keeps going up, hitting levels too high for many people to resist, Gabon’s elephants are getting slaughtered by poachers from across the borders and within the rain forests, proof that just about nowhere in Africa are elephants safe.

In the past several years, 10,000 elephants in Gabon have been wiped out, some picked off by impoverished hunters creeping around the jungle with rusty shotguns and willing to be paid in sacks of salt, others mowed down en masse by criminal gangs that slice off the dead elephants’ faces with chain saws. Gabon’s jails are filling up with small-time poachers and ivory traffickers, destitute men and women like Therese Medza, a village hairdresser arrested a few months ago for selling 45 pounds of tusks.

“I had no idea it was illegal,” Ms. Medza said, almost convincingly, from the central jail here in Oyem, in the north. “I was told the tusks were found in the forest.”

She netted about $700, far more than she usually makes in a month, and the reason she did it was simple, she said. “I got seven kids.”

It seems that Gabon’s elephants are getting squeezed in a deadly vise between a seemingly insatiable lust for ivory in Asia, where some people pay as much as $1,000 a pound, and desperate hunters and traffickers in central Africa.

It is a story of temptation — and exploitation — and it shows that the problem is not just about demand, but about supply as well. Poverty, as well as greed, is killing Africa’s elephants.

Across the continent, tens of thousands of elephants are being poached each year in what is emerging as one of the gravest wildlife crises in decades. Gabon’s elephants are among the last of the planet’s rare forest elephants, a subspecies or possibly a totally distinct species (scientists can’t agree), which makes the stakes particularly high here. Forest elephants are smaller than their savanna cousins and have an alluring, extra-hard pinkish ivory that is especially prized.

A few decades ago, there were perhaps 700,000 forest elephants roaming through the jungles of central Africa. Now there may be fewer than 100,000, and about half of them live in Gabon.

“We’re talking about the survival of the species,” said Lee White, the British-born head of Gabon’s national parks.

In June, Gabon’s president, Ali Bongo, defiantly lighted a pyramid of 10,000 pounds of ivory on fire to make the point that the ivory trade was reprehensible, a public display of resolve that Kenya has put on in years past. It took three days for all the ivory to burn, and even after the last tusks were reduced to glowing embers, policemen vigilantly guarded the ashes. Ivory powder is valued in Asia for its purported medicinal powers, and the officers were worried someone might try to sweep up the ashes and sell them.

Some African countries, like Zimbabwe and Tanzania, are sitting on million-dollar stockpiles of ivory (usually from law enforcement seizures or elephants that died naturally) that someday may be legal to sell. Gabon has the unusual luxury of kissing its ivory mountain goodbye because it has an even more lucrative resource: two billion barrels of crude oil.

But it is not clear how long Gabon will continue as this relatively prosperous, politically stable corner of Africa. Protesters recently began chaffing against Mr. Bongo’s rule, saying he rigged an election to ensure that he would take over from his father, who died in 2009 after 41 years in office.

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Police find New York gunman's threatening note but no motive

The New York felon who set a Christmas Eve trap for firefighters left a note saying he wanted to burn down the neighborhood and "do what I do best: killing people," police said Tuesday.

Investigators found human remains in the burned-out home of ex-con William Spengler, 62, a day after his rampage in Webster, a Rochester suburb. Officials said the remains probably were those of Spengler's missing sister, Cheryl, 67.

Spengler apparently set the blaze in or near his home and lay in wait, killing two firefighters and seriously wounding two more before taking his own life, officials said.

In his note, Spengler wrote, "I still have to get ready to see how much of the neighborhood I can burn down and do what I do best: killing people," police said at a Christmas Day news conference.

Officers characterized the note as "rambling" and said it did not include a motive. They declined to release more excerpts Tuesday.

"Motive is always the burning question, and I'm not sure we'll ever really know what was going through his mind," Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering said.

Spengler appeared to have led an uneventful life for the last 14 years, but had a violent history: In 1980, he beat his grandmother to death with a hammer. He spent 18 years in prison and was released in 1998.

Monday's blaze — which officials think may have started as a vehicle fire — consumed seven homes and damaged two more in Webster, a sleepy community on the shores of Lake Ontario and Irondequoit Bay.

Police think Spengler used a military-style Bushmaster .223 rifle with a flash suppressor. They recovered the weapon along with a Smith & Wesson .38-caliber revolver and a Mossberg pump-action 12-gauge shotgun.

As a felon, Spengler was barred from owning guns. Officials were unsure how he had obtained them, but said he was armed to the teeth.

"He was equipped to go to war and kill innocent people," Pickering said.

Spengler's attack would mark the third time in two weeks that a gunman had attempted a mass killing with an assault rifle. On Dec. 14, Adam Lanza killed 20 grade-school students and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., using a military-style Bushmaster .223 rifle. Lanza also killed his mother and himself. On Dec. 11, Jacob Tyler Roberts opened fire in a Clackamas, Ore., mall with an AR-15-style rifle, killing two and wounding one before taking his own life.

The discovery that Spengler had a Bushmaster is likely to intensify the outcry for tighter gun controls that followed the Newtown massacre. The gun, which looks like a military assault rifle, also was used in the 2002 sniper attacks that left 10 dead and three wounded in the Washington, D.C., area.

President Obama is expected to begin pushing for specific gun control measures, including bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, after he receives recommendations from Vice President Joe Biden in January. The National Rifle Assn., the nation's most powerful gun lobby, has vowed to fight any attempts to curtail gun ownership.

In Webster, during the first of two news conferences on Christmas Day, officials described Monday's chaotic "combat situation." Firefighters were targeted before getting out of their trucks, police said, and a Webster police officer used his duty rifle to trade fire with Spengler.

Rounds shattered the windshield of the firetruck that two of the firefighters were in; the wounded driver crashed trying to get away.

"Had that police officer not been there, more people would have been killed, because he immediately engaged the shooter," Pickering said of the officer, who has not been identified.

Another police officer from nearby Greece, N.Y., Jon Ritter, was driving behind the firetruck when he also came under fire. He was wounded by shrapnel from the bullets that struck his windshield and engine block, police said.

Ritter "tried to shelter some of the fallen firemen with his car when the other firefighters — that we later extracted from the location with the armored personnel carrier — had taken cover under the firetruck," Pickering said.

The two wounded firefighters remained in intensive care and were described as stable.

Officials said that 33 neighborhood residents had been displaced by the blaze and the investigation and that hotels had offered them places to stay.

"We all have been inundated from citizens, police agencies across the nation and really across the world, wanting to provide donations," Pickering said. The outpouring "has been incredible."

matt.pearce@latimes.com

Times staff writer John Hoeffel in Naples, N.Y., contributed to this report.

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A Look Inside Tarantino's <em>Django Unchained</em> Comic Book

Django Unchained opens in theaters today, but the big screen isn’t the only way to see the newest work by Quentin Tarantino. The issue of the Django Unchained comic book mini-series from DC/Vertigo Comics is available now in comic book stores (and online), and in advance of tomorrow’s film debut, Wired has a look at the Tarantino’s introduction to the comic, along with the original character sketches by artist R.M. Guéra and a six-page preview of the first issue.

The comic is an incredibly faithful adaptation of Tarantino’s movie script – the first issue is the first few scenes of the film, almost line for line. Drawing on the director’s story, the book’s interior art comes from Guéra, who made characters that hew closely to their actor counterparts but are their own characters entirely. The artist’s Django, the slave that becomes a bounty hunter, has a more steely cowboy vibe than smooth, cool Jamie Foxx; ruthless plantation owner Calvin Candie looks even more maniacal than Leonardo DiCaprio; and Candie’s house slave Stephen looks far more jowly and grizzled on the page than Samuel L. Jackson does on screen.

“Growing up I read the adventures of Kid Colt Outlaw, TOMAHAWK, The Rawhide Kid, BAT LASH, and especially, Yang (which was basically the Kung Fu TV show done as a comic), and Gunhawks featuring Reno Jones (a Jim Brown stand-in) and Kid Cassidy (a David Cassidy stand-in), which for my money was the greatest Blaxploitation Western ever made,” Tarantino says in the first issue’s intro. “And it’s in that spirit of cinematic comics literature that I present to you Django Unchained.”

Tarantino’s version of the story hits theaters Dec. 25.

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Britain’s royal family attends Christmas services

LONDON (AP) — Britain‘s royal family is attending Christmas Day church services — with a few notable absences.

Wearing a turquoise coat and matching hat, Queen Elizabeth II arrived at St. Mary Magdelene Church on her sprawling Sandringham estate in Norfolk. She was accompanied in a Bentley by granddaughters Beatrice and Eugenie.

Her husband, Prince Philip, walked from the house to the church with other members of the royal family.

Three familiar faces were missing from the family outing. Prince William is spending the holiday with his pregnant wife Kate and his in-laws in the southern England village of Bucklebury. Prince Harry is serving with British troops in Afghanistan.

Later Tuesday, the queen will deliver her traditional, pre-recorded Christmas message, which for the first time will be broadcast in 3D.

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Recipes for Health: Penne With Mushroom Ragout and Spinach

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Penne with mushroom ragout and spinach.

​​Mushrooms and spinach together is always a match made in heaven. I use a mix of wild and regular white or cremini mushrooms for this, but don’t hesitate to make it if regular mushrooms are all that is available.

 

1/2 ounce (about 1/2 cup) dried porcini mushrooms

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1/2 medium onion or 2 shallots, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 pound mixed regular and wild mushrooms or 1 pound regular white or cremini mushrooms, trimmed and cut in thick slices (or torn into smaller pieces, depending on the type of mushroom)

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1/4 cup fruity red wine, such as a Côtes du Rhone or Côtes du Luberon

2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme or a combination of thyme and rosemary

6 ounces baby spinach or 12 ounces bunch spinach (1 bunch), stemmed and thoroughly cleaned

3/4 pound penne

Freshly grated Parmesan to taste

 

1. Place the dried mushrooms in a Pyrex measuring cup and pour on 2 cups boiling water. Let soak 30 minutes, while you prepare the other ingredients. Place a strainer over a bowl, line it with cheesecloth or paper towels, and drain the mushrooms. Squeeze the mushrooms over the strainer to extract all the flavorful juices. Then rinse the mushrooms, away from the bowl with the soaking liquid, until they are free of sand. Squeeze dry and set aside. If very large, chop coarsely. Measure out 1 cup of the soaking liquid and set aside.

2. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy, nonstick skillet over medium heat and add the onion or shallots. Cook, stirring often, until tender, about 5 minutes. Turn up the heat to medium-high and add the fresh mushrooms. Cook, stirring often, until they begin to soften and sweat, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and salt to taste, stir together for about 30 seconds, then add the reconstituted dried mushrooms and the wine and turn the heat to high. Cook, stirring, until the liquid boils down and glazes the mushrooms. Add the herbs and the mushroom soaking liquid. Bring to a simmer, add salt to taste, and cook over medium-high heat, stirring often, until the mushrooms are thoroughly tender and fragrant. Turn off the heat, stir in some freshly ground pepper, taste and adjust salt.

3. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt generously. Fill a bowl with ice water. Add the spinach to the boiling water and blanch for 20 seconds only. Remove with a skimmer and transfer to the ice water, then drain and squeeze out water. Chop coarsely and add to the mushrooms. Reheat gently over low heat.

4. Bring the water back to a boil and cook the pasta al dente following the timing suggestions on the package. If there is not much broth in the pan with the mushrooms and spinach, add a ladleful of pasta water. Drain the pasta, toss with the mushrooms and spinach, add Parmesan to taste, and serve at once.

Yield: Serves 4

Advance preparation: The mushroom ragout will keep for 3 or 4 days in the refrigerator and tastes even better the day after you make it.

Nutritional information per serving: 437 calories; 9 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 5 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 73 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams dietary fiber; 48 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste or Parmesan); 17 grams protein

​

Up Next: Spinach Gnocchi

 

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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Jack Klugman dies at 90; star of TV's 'The Odd Couple,' 'Quincy'

Jack Klugman, the three-time Emmy Award-winning actor best known for his portrayals of slovenly sportswriter Oscar Madison on TV's “The Odd Couple” and the title role of the murder-solving medical examiner on “Quincy, M.E.,” died Monday at his home in Woodland Hills. He was 90.

Klugman had been in declining health for the last year, his son Adam said.

He had withdrawn from a production of “Twelve Angry Men” at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, N.J., in Marchfor undisclosed health reasons. He had undergone successful surgery for cancer of the larynx in 1989.

PHOTOS: 2012 notable deaths

Klugman was the last surviving member of the cast that played the jury in “12 Angry Men,” the classic 1957 movie drama about deliberations in a first-degree murder trial. He was also a veteran of live TV dramatic anthology series in the 1950s and appeared in several episodes of “Twilight Zone.”

On Broadway, Klugman played Ethel Merman's boyfriend, Herbie, in the hit musical “Gypsy,” which earned him a 1960 Tony Award nomination. He won his first Emmy in 1964 for a guest appearance on “The Defenders.”

In 1965, he was back on Broadway, replacing Walter Matthau as Oscar Madison in the original production of “The Odd Couple,” Neil Simon's classic comedy about two friends with polar-opposite personalities who become roommates — one is divorced and the other just broke up with his wife.

PHOTOS: Jack Klugman -- 1922 - 2012

But that's not why Klugman landed the role of the casually sloppy Oscar Madison in the TV version of “The Odd Couple” opposite Tony Randall's fussy neat-freak Felix Unger.

Randall, who had appeared in a production of “The Odd Couple” with Mickey Rooney, had wanted Rooney to play Oscar in the TV series. But executive producer Garry Marshall fought for Klugman.

In his 2005 book “Tony and Me: A Story of Friendship,” Klugman wrote that during the first rehearsals for the TV series, Marshall told him he'd never seen him play Oscar on Broadway.

“What!” said Klugman. “Then why did you fight for me?”

“I saw you in ‘Gypsy,’ “ said Marshall. “You did a scene with Ethel Merman and I was impressed because as she was singing to you, she was spitting a lot and it was getting on your clothes and your face and in your eyes. You never even flinched. I said to myself, ‘Now that's a good actor.’ “

Although “The Odd Couple” was not a hit when it aired on ABC from 1970 to 1975, it has had a long life in syndication and forever cemented the reputation of its two stars as one of TV's great comedy teams.

In TV Guide's 1999 listing of “TV's Fifty Greatest Characters Ever,” Felix and Oscar ranked No. 12.

“Many acting tandems have played Neil Simon's testosterone-and-teacup duo over the years on stage and screen,” the magazine observed. “But Tony Randall and Jack Klugman are the Felix and Oscar we love most. For five unflaggingly creative seasons, they were the most evenly matched ‘Odd Couple' imaginable.”

Although Randall claimed he was “very little like” Felix, Klugman said in a 1996 interview with The Times, that he was “pretty close” to Oscar.

In fact, when members of the wardrobe department initially sought to outfit the unkempt Oscar, they looked no further than Klugman himself.

“They paid me $360 for everything in my closet, and I still made a profit on the deal,” he told Sports Illustrated in 2005.

As Oscar, Klugman won Emmys in 1971 and 1973 for outstanding continued performance by an actor in a leading role in a comedy series.

After “The Odd Couple” ended its run in 1975, Klugman said the last thing on his mind was doing another TV series.

Having “spent five years in the best situation comedy ever devised” and having worked with Randall, “the nicest guy in this business,” Klugman said, he turned down one pilot series script after another, particularly those for sitcoms.

But when he received the script for “Quincy, M.E.,” he said, he saw “potential in it — the gimmick of a doctor who solves crime for the police by medical and scientific deduction. It was not just another cop show.”

And with “Quincy, M.E.” which ran on NBC from 1976 to 1983 and earned Klugman four Emmy nominations, he saw a way to raise issues such as incest, child abuse, drunk driving and elderly abuse.

“I'm a muckraker,” he told the Chicago Tribune in 1993. “I saw the possibilities in ‘Quincy': We could entertain with what was essentially a good murder mystery but also do important shows on important subjects. This was why I got into the business.”

One of six children, Klugman was born in Philadelphia on April 27, 1922. His father, a financially struggling house painter, died when Klugman was 12. A year later, after a stint selling newspapers, Klugman began taking horse bets to earn extra money.

“The dealer said, ‘These guys will give you slips of paper. Just put them in the tin,'“ he recalled in a 1971 interview with The Times. “Then I was taking bets on the phone.”

A lifelong track aficionado, Klugman later owned a horse farm in Temecula, and his racehorse, Jaklin Klugman, finished third in the 1980 Kentucky Derby.

Back home in 1945 after serving in the Army during World War II, Klugman lost the $3,000 he had saved in U.S. savings bonds by betting on baseball games. Worse, he owed $500 to a loan shark and faced serious bodily injury unless he made a payment within three days.

Unable to come up with the cash, Klugman skipped town and moved to Pittsburgh, where he was accepted into the drama department of what is now Carnegie Mellon University. A few years later he moved to New York, where he landed parts in off-Broadway and summer stock.

He appeared in films such as “Days of Wine and Roses” and “Goodbye, Columbus,” and also starred in two short-lived situation comedies: “Harris Against the World” and “You Again?”

In 1989, Klugman, a heavy smoker, underwent surgery for cancer of the larynx in which the center of his right vocal cord was removed. Afterward, the actor famous for his raspy growl initially was unable to speak above a whisper.

After going public with his story a year-and-a-half later, he worked with voice specialist Gary Catona who put Klugman on a regimen of daily vocal exercises to strengthen his left vocal cord so that it could stretch to touch what was left of his right vocal cord and produce a sound.

His old friend Randall also played a key role in his return to acting in 1991.

After beginning his vocal exercises, Randall called Klugman to suggest that they do a one-night benefit performance of “The Odd Couple” on Broadway for Randall's new National Actors Theatre.

“I said to Tony, ‘I can't even talk. I don't know how I can do it,' “ Klugman recalled in a 1993 interview with the Chicago Tribune.

But, as he wrote in his memoir, after six months of working on his voice “like Rocky worked on his body,” the whisper “became a sound, and in time, the sound became a little voice. But was it enough to perform on Broadway?”

Nervous about facing an audience and hating the way he sounded, Klugman, who wore a small microphone on stage, was encouraged after getting his first laugh.

At the end of the performance, he took his bow to a standing ovation.

“After that, I knew I was back,” he said.

Klugman married actress and comedienne Brett Somers in 1953. They had been separated for many years when she died in 2007.

In addition to son Adam, he is survived by his wife, Peggy; son David; and two grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

McClellan is a former staff writer.

news.obits@latimes.com

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