One of the things about M*A*S*H was that it showed that, yes, these people would be interacting with people they never otherwise would have. It isn’t just that Maxwell Q. Klinger—or indeed Jameel Farah—would never otherwise have gone to Korea. It’s that the Lebanese boy from Toledo, Ohio, would come to know and love people from all over the United States. The Unit Of Carefully Mixed Ethnic Types is of course now a Hollywood stereotype all by itself, and goodness knows Klinger was one of the characters who could lean heavily into his ethnic background when it was what the story called for. But most of the time, he was just there, being a Lebanese guy on television, which is to this day pretty unusual. It’s like him and Tony Shalhoub.
I am delighted to inform you that he won two dollars in an acting contest when he was eleven. He is also one of the many graduates of the Pasadena Playhouse and one of only two M*A*S*H cast members to actually serve in Korea (neither during the war). Before serving in Korea, he was cast in a small but important role in Blackboard Jungle. After his return, he mostly floated around doing bit parts for about fifteen years. Probably most notable of these is the Apostle Thaddeus in The Greatest Story Ever Told. He also did a lot of assorted TV, including commercials.
And in 1972, he was hired for a single day of work on M*A*S*H as some guy trying to get out of the Army by wearing dresses. It is a single moment in a series of events that show that the 4077 is not exactly the height of military discipline in the episode “Chief Surgeon Who?” Farr is of course Klinger, standing guard duty in a dress. In point of fact, in a nurse’s dress uniform, pleasantly enough. Now, M*A*S*H tended toward efficiency in its background cast—you tended to see the same cast over and over, because you’d see the same people around base, right? But in this case, Farr did so well that he really made the role essential.
He’s been working steadily since then, of course, and not just by being a staple of game shows—though if you watched game shows in the ’70s, you saw a lot of Jamie Farr. He does a lot of theatre, too—I kind of wish I’d seen his Nathan Detroit, honestly, though I’ll honestly confess I don’t know what his singing voice sounds like, and that seems kind of important for the role. In the mid-’90s, he and William Christopher toured as Oscar and Felix, respectively, in The Odd Couple.
With the 2016 death of Christopher, he is the oldest living M*A*S*H cast member. His own personality infused Klinger; all those references to Toledo are organic to Farr himself. He was the Mudhens fan, the Tony Packos Hot Dogs fan. Klinger, of course, was a character completely original to the TV show; he does not appear in the novel or movie. He appears in the first season, yes, and is a recurring presence through the series—and is also one of those characters who is able to grow and change. There’s more to Klinger than just the dresses, even in that first episode.
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