Tony Randall’s Widow Speaks about their marriage
Posted on January 9th, 2008 by Hot Momma
When Rudy Giuliani married them in 1995, Tony was three times Heather’s age. At the time, Randall was starring in The School for Scandal, a play about an older man’s rocky marriage to a young woman. (Heather was an understudy.) She was a 20-year-old intern; he was a celebrated actor 50 years her senior. Now She’s president of the board of the New York Theatre Workshop, which her late husband founded, and is raising their kids, Julia, 10, and Jefferson, 9.
Tony Randall’s widow Heather has largely stayed out of the spotlight since his death at 2003 at age 84, save for one interview on Larry King. But now Heather, 36, is speaking up in an interivew with Marie Claire. Here are some excerpts.
Reaction from friends to the marriage:
“Did his friends think I was a gold digger at first? Well, I remember one or two women telling him he was an old fool . . . and I’m sure people said and continue to say things behind my back,” Heather laughs. “But I don’t hear most of it.” As for his real friends — Garry Marshall, Jack Klugman, Eli Wallach — “I don’t think anything like that ever occurred to them.” Heather is still very close to these Hollywood legends. “If they thought I was a jerk, I would think they would have dropped me like a hot potato.”
Did they have sex:
“I always imagine what it would be like to go on Howard Stern, because I know the first thing he would ask is, ‘What is it like to give an 80-year-old a blow job?’ I know this is hard for people to grasp, but sex was not a problem. We had frequent sex until he went into the hospital. It was just a normal part of our married life, and it was happy, and we took care of each other that way until the end.”
And about the gay rumors:
“I don’t think he knew people thought that [he was gay],” Heather says. “It just wouldn’t have occurred to him. He was very secure in his masculinity, which is why he wasn’t afraid to play effeminate roles. He was the first person on TV to play a lead character who was gay, in the series Love, Sydney, and then there was Felix Unger” — from The Odd Couple — “who was, you know, a woman,” Heather says.
And the decision to have children wit.h Tony, what was she thinking?
“It’s horrible for a child to lose a parent at an early age, but our life is not a tragedy because Tony died. He was a loving husband. And since he couldn’t have kids with his first wife, he desperately wanted them—so he was an incredibly loving father. And a great provider—his children have everything they will ever need.” Yes, there are the proceeds from the antique-filled Manhattan apartment, the vacation apartment in Key Biscayne the Randalls bought a year before he died. But there is also their daughter’s abiding love of opera, their son’s burning desire to tread the boards. “His presence,” Heather says quietly, “is very, very strong in our lives.”
Full interview at Marie Claire here
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