Brett Somers (July 11, 1924 – September 15, 2007) was a Canadian-American actress, singer, and comedian who was born in Canada and raised in Maine. She was best known as a panelist on the 1970s game show, Match Game, and for her recurring role as Blanche Madison opposite her real life husband Jack Klugman on The Odd Couple.
The Great American Beauty Contest, Bone, A Rage to Live, Bus Riley's Back in Town
TV Shows
Match Game, The Odd Couple, The New Perry Mason
Star Sign
Cancer
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Trademark
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Deep husky voice
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Fact
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Longtime resident of Fairfield County's Westport, Conneticut.
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Following her death, she was interred at Memorial Garden at the Unitarian Church in Westport, Conneticut.
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She and Jack Klugman made many television appearances as a couple. Somers appeared on several episodes of The Odd Couple (1970), playing the ex-wife of Klugman's character.
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Brett married Jack Klugman in 1953 and went by the name Brett Somers Klugman at one point. The couple had two children, David Klugman and Adam Klugman, before separating in 1974. They never divorced.
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She appeared on several episodes of The Odd Couple (1970) playing the ex-wife (Blanche) of Klugman's character Oscar Madison. The estranged couple also made countless television appearances together. For many years, they were sought after guests on the 1970s game and talk show circuit, including The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), The Mike Douglas Show (1961), He Said, She Said (1969) and, of course, Match Game 73 (1973).
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Daughter Leslie Klein, who was a product of Brett's first marriage to Robert Klein, died in 2003 of lung cancer.
"An Evening with Brett Somers" opened in New York City to rave reviews in 2003. At age seventy-nine, Brett found herself back in the limelight and won Backstage's prestigious Bistro Award. She was diagnosed with cancer not long after. It went into remission for a time after surgery and chemotherapy, but returned inoperable in 2007.
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Made her Broadway debut in the short-lived play "Maybe Tuesday" in 1958, which lasted only five performances. She also appeared in "Happy Ending" with Paul Winfield, "The Seven Year Itch" with Art Carney and Lee Remick, and in "The Country Girl" with husband Klugman.
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She was not originally on the celebrity panel of Match Game 73 (1973). When her husband, Jack Klugman, appeared on the first week of the program in 1973, he suggested that producers bring her aboard. Her wit and dry humor proved extremely successful, and she would remain a regular panelist for the remainder of the show's nine year network and syndicated run.
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In 2005, Jack and Brett reunited on stage in "Danger, People at Large", three short comedies by Frederick Stroppel at Fairfield University's Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts. The special evening marked the first time in about three decades that Klugman and Somers had performed together.
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Grew up in Portland, Maine. Ran away from home at age 17 and headed to New York City, where she settled in Greenwich Village. Changed first name to Brett after the female lead character in the Ernest Hemingway novel, "The Sun Also Rises". Somers was her mother's maiden name.
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In 1957, she played a "wisecracking broad" in the Broadway play "Maybe Tuesday", which ironically opened on a Wednesday and closed before Tuesday... a fact she joked about in her circa-2002 cabaret show. Other future TV stars in the cast of "Maybe Tuesday" were Alice Ghostley (later Esmeralda on Bewitched (1964)) and Louis Edmonds (Roger Collins on Dark Shadows (1966) and Langley Wallingford on All My Children (1970)). "Maybe Tuesday" is described extensively in Craig Hamrick's 2003 book "Big Lou", the biography of Louis Edmonds. The author, a longtime fan of Somers, presented her with a copy of the book at one of her cabaret shows in New York City.
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Best known by the public as a panelist on Match Game 73 (1973). On nearly every episode, she was the comic foil to Charles Nelson Reilly (and vice versa).
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Often traveled from New York to Los Angeles with Match Game 73 (1973) host Gene Rayburn to tape the game show.
$850,000
