owned a barber shop in Beverly Hills, and cut the hair of all of the famous comedians: Milton Berle, Harry Ritz of the Ritz Brothers and many more. Most of them were Jewish with the exception of one… Amos Jacob. He is better known as Danny Thomas. Danny had his hair cut by Harry. Harry kept telling Danny that his son was going to be a comedy writer and playwright, and wanted him to look at some of his jokes, even though he was still in high school. Danny agreed, he liked the jokes and bought them from Larry Gelbart. I believe when Larry created Klinger, he made him Lebanese as a payback to Danny, who bought his first material.
There were many details of your Toledo background which you shared in common with Klinger. Did the writers base his background on your life? How much input did you have in the shaping of Klinger’s story? I am quite proud of the association. However it does sometimes play a negativity when I am currently up Yes. They used many of my real life names and places, due to a show we did where we ad libbed the dialogue. It was the black and white episode with Clete Roberts. He was supposed to represent the CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow, who went to Korea to interview the fighting troops. We did not know the questions Clete Roberts was going to ask us on film, but we had to answer them as our character. Since they made Klinger from Toledo I used all of my past resources for references. That is how the hot dog place (Tony Packo’s) came in to mention. The minor league baseball team the Toledo Mud Hens had already been established in earlier episodes. for a role in a film or TV show. Because of his zany nature it was an indelible character, and it stuck to me as the actor. The series is still on the air all over the world and it reminds the producers and directors of that nutty character I played. It adds to a negative typecasting. Fortunately I have managed to fight the image with some success. I have done a great number of live theatre performances with rave critics’ reviews, and have managed to get some interesting roles here and there in film and TV. Although they are getting more infrequent. But I am still in there “pitching” and not “bitching”. How do you feel about being so strongly associated with the character of Max Klinger?