Jamie Farr had it all
MASH star Klinger, without his dress, seduced Theatre Aquarius audiences
I heard Jamie Farr coming before he even poked his head round the door. It was the clanking shoe-bag of pills he was carrying that gave him away.
In Hamilton, in 2015, to star in the Theatre Aquarius production of “The Last Romance” Farr was the sort of actor folks noticed right away.
“I love it when someone stops me on the street for a chat,” Farr said with a grin.
“I’m grateful people recognize me,” he shrugs. “I never try to hide. What would be the point? When you’ve done a popular TV show like I have, you’d feel sad if no one noticed you. It would be a bit of a slap in the face.”
For all his TV fame, Farr enjoys acting on the stage, after years of working in front of a camera.
“It’s so immediate. The laughs are right there,” he said. When they aren’t, you know you’ve done something wrong. I think going back to my roots on the stage is a great thing. It suits me, I suppose. There’s nothing shy about me. And I like discovering new places and making new friends.”
Farr liked working at Theater Aquarius. Ron Ulrich, the theatre’s artistic director called him up and invited him to come to Hamilton.
“I didn’t even know where Hamilton was,” Farr said.
An Ulrich booster, Farr returned to the city several times and was always a huge success.
Watching him as Corporal Klinger on “MASH” for years made us feel we knew him.
“Look, I know I will always be identified with Klinger, dress and all. Why? Because the show was such a huge success. It ran for so many years. Still, in some ways I always knew I had to escape from that role, but you don’t turn your back on something as popular as that without a mighty struggle. And you know, I’m grateful for the fact it made me a name.’’
There’s no sense of camouflage, no mystery, no sense of the big star about Farr.
He’s had big success. But he’s also had big issues. He collapsed in Edmonton in 2014 while doing a dinner theatre play there.
“That shook me,” he says. “It made me feel my own mortality. But, you know, I’ve always been a person with the will to be happy, a positive kind of guy, so I just tried to keep on going.”
Farr clinks his bag of pills and shrugs.
“These are a fact of life, my life anyway,” he grins. And I’ve had to have a change in diet. It’s all tofu and stuff now,” he winces. “But I’ll tell you I could murder a hot dog.”
Collapsing in the middle of playing in “The Last Romance” in Edmonton, Farr was taken to hospital. Because there was no understudy, he chose to do the show the rest of the week.
“That wasn’t so smart,” he says. “And I can tell you it was a wake-up call.
“In the end they put a stent in an artery,” Farr says, “And I let someone else finish the run of the play. Eight performances a week is a lot for someone my age. I may look young, but I’m not.”
Farr studied at the famous Pasadena Playhouse in California. He played “King Lear” there when he was 17.
“Talk about crazy casting. Now I’m the right age, no one would think of asking me.”
Farr has serious acting chops beyond his Klinger role on “MASH” that debuted in 1972. He was terrific in the drama “Tuesdays with Morrie,” at Stage West in Mississauga as well as at Theatre Aquarius.
He starred in “Flamingo Court” in New York City with actress Anita Gillette. When he was just starting out, he played heavyweight roles in films like “The Blackboard Jungle.”
I sat down with Farr again the next time he came to Aquarius in 2018 to do “Jack of Diamonds.”
He seemed in fine fettle, but sadly he collapsed a few days into rehearsals. This time he wasn’t taking any chances.
Doctors at Hamilton General Hospital wanted to operate immediately and deal with Farr’s cardiac issues, but he refused, preferring to fly home to California so his own doctors could deal with the problem.
Before he left town, Farr issued a statement telling his fans how disappointed he was to back out of the Hamilton show. It was however the right decision.
Farr has been pretty much retired ever since.
Born in Toledo, Ohio, Farr fell in love with the theatre as a kid.
“It’s not just the shows, it’s the people,” he told me.
“I loved all the folks I worked with on ‘MASH.’ In a way we were a big family. It was so sad when anyone left the show. There was such love and friendship and I think that showed.”
These days Farr is enjoying life with his wife of 40 years, Joy Ann Richards. He is 88 and still clanking his pill bag.