Jack Klugman's Son Adam Talks About Tough Childhood

[Brian Damage]

When Adam Klugman was an adolescent, his dad, the actor Jack Klugman, was arguably at the height of his fame. The elder Klugman had already distinguished himself over the years in films like “12 Angry Men” and “Days of Wine and Roses,” and in a host of television series such as “The Twilight Zone” and “The Fugitive.” In the early 1970s he became a household name playing sportswriter Oscar Madison in the television version of “The Odd Couple,” opposite Tony Randall’s Felix Unger.

When Adam Klugman was a teenager, his father’s presence was again all over the small box, in the title role of the series “Quincy, M.E.,” which began in 1976 and ran on NBC for eight seasons. While Jack Klugman was being nominated 10 times for Emmys over the years, winning three, his son was struggling to find his place in the world.

“The glare of somebody else’s personality outshines you,” said Adam Klugman, who became a successful film editor and now runs a business called Progressive Media Agency in Portland, Ore., where he lives with his family. “When you have a famous parent, it’s hard to get a good look at yourself, because the glare of the fame is pretty great. You’re struggling with issues of identity anyway as a child, as an adolescent ... .”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35694178...t-celebrities/