RANDALL SPEAKS HIS MIND

During his stint as a “Great American Talk Festival” speaker Thursday night in Santa Ana, Tony Randall was asked by a member of the audience to give “his survey” of the state of commercial television.

The actor’s response was exactly what the audience of 750 at the Santa Ana High School Auditorium came to see and hear: Randall’s amused affability, brittle asides and assured timing.

“Survey, you said?” His comment that followed was tersely to the point and clearly bleepable: “How do you survey ----?”

Randall has not starred in a television series since the demise three seasons ago of NBC-TV’s “Love, Sidney,” whose homosexual hero had stirred objections from the Moral Majority and other media-watchdog organizations.

Randall, 65, said he has “semi-retired” as a “commercial actor” and devotes himself almost entirely to arts-advocacy causes, especially a movement to form a classical repertory theater in New York.

But Thursday night was Randall’s turn for one of those “An Evening With . . .” celebrity chitchats--and it was obvious the audience came mainly because of the familiarity with the star of television’s one-time “The Odd Couple” series and those other roles Randall has played with deadpan-wacky finesse.

Originally, director-writer Orson Welles was announced as the Nov. 7 speaker in the weeklong, city-hosted lecture series. But Welles’ death Oct. 10 led to the last-minute substitution of Randall, who uses the same New York publicity agency that Welles had used.

Mindful of the Talk Festival’s scholarly tone (the other speakers this week were Jeane Kirkpatrick, Andrew Young, John Naisbitt and Marva Collins), Randall provided some professorial moments.

He briefly discussed the legacy of great acting from David Garrick to Laurence Olivier to Marlon Brando. He also sought to define the art of humor: “The underlying essence of true humor is the cruelty. We laugh because it’s happening to someone else, not to us. It turns our pain into pleasure.”

Randall admitted being pleased by the popularity of his comedic roles--to a point. He is known for his farcical characters in movies, such as the befuddled foil in the Doris Day-Rock Hudson comedies of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. Most of all, he is remembered as the ultra-fussbudget, Felix Unger, his Emmy Award-winning role in “The Odd Couple” television series of the early ‘70s.

Last year, Randall played Felix in yet another revival of Neil Simon’s original “The Odd Couple” play--this time in Australia.

“Am I a neat freak, like Felix? No, not at all. I realize that’s a compliment, to be so identified with a character. But it can be annoying. It puts you in the position of being typecast.”

Reminding his Santa Ana audience that he has also done considerable dramatic work, Randall noted: “I didn’t start out to be a comedy actor. Things just worked out that way. I’ve done other work as an actor, you know.” (Two of his most acclaimed dramatic performances came in the ‘50s: the iconoclastic journalist in the original New York production of “Inherit the Wind” and the alcoholic salesman in the movie “No Down Payment.”)

Later, during a backstage interview, Randall talked more about the state of commercial television.

Yes, he said, he still gets offers to do other television series (he had also starred as a judge in “The Tony Randall Show” sitcom of the late ‘70s).

“I don’t want to do another series. It’s an enormous pressure. Besides, what is TV today?”

Randall then gave a grimace. “It’s a lot of . . . crap. Oh yeah, there’s something like ‘Miami Vice.’ Forget it.”

Would “Love, Sidney,” with its gay hero, have fared better today, with more homosexual-themed productions being considered for television?

“I don’t think the problem was the subject matter or the (societal) atmosphere at the time. When the network dropped us, it was the ratings that did us in. Our ratings were good in the large cities, but we didn’t make it overall.

“Before ‘Sidney’ went on the air, the Moral Majority had already come after us. They asked people to bombard us with letters to stop the show. You know what? We got only four letters--just four .”

In his “semi-retirement,” he is now mostly Randall the arts activist. One show of advocacy came at recent congressional hearings, where he testified for legislation to provide more corporate tax breaks for arts support.

But his most driving goal, he said, is the classical repertory theater venture in New York City. He hopes to win city fiscal backing to turn an old 42nd Street theater into a permanent home for such a repertory--which would be the first in the U.S.

“I’ve already set aside some of my own money to use as a seed fund to launch the project. We’re talking about two years before we can get started, if all goes well,” Randall said.

“It’s a tragedy that this country doesn’t have a classical repertory like those in Britain and every other civilized country. The National (Theatre) and Royal Shakespeare (Company in Britain) are big box office there. The arts are an investment there in every sense of the word.”

Now it was Randall, the lifelong opera and classical-music buff, talking.

“When I was a kid, there was--what?--only the Met in opera. Today there’re opera companies in dozens of cities--San Diego, Houston, Seattle, you name them. You have a big performing arts center going up right here in Orange County.

“Is there an arts explosion going on in this country? You bet there is.”