Toy inventor and designer best known for the Game of Life
REUBEN KLAMER, who has died aged 99, was an inventor and toy designer best known for reviving a 19th-century board game from the Victorian era that took the players through each stage of life, from cradle to grave; Klamer’s version, The Game of Life, launched in 1960, went on to be the secondbiggest board game of all time behind Monopoly. He also devised weapons for Star Trek and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
The Checkered Game of Life was launched by a lithographer, Milton Bradley, in 1860, becoming the first popular parlour game in the US. Using a “checkerboard” and dice, it depicted – with a strong moral underpinning – a person’s journey through life, with jobs, marriage, and possible children.
A hundred years later Klamer teamed up with a designer, Bill Markham, to devise a modern version, which featured a train making its way round mountains, buildings and other features, according to the spin of a wheel. A later addition was the “Day of Reckoning”, which could result in the player ending up as a “Millionaire Tycoon” or in the “Poor Farm”.
Enthusiastically endorsed by the radio and television personality Art Linkletter, it soon became a hit, and to date has sold more than 35 million copies.
Asked why the Game was such a success, Klamer said: “It’s met the test of time … It’s obvious that it did it because of the game elements. The core elements of the Game of Life: decision-making, dedication to the family, money-making and fun. Most of all, fun.”
Reuben Klamer was born to Romanian immigrants on June 18 1922 in Canton, Ohio. He studied Ancient and Modern History at George Washington University in Washington, then gained a BSC in Marketing from Ohio State University before postgraduate studies in engineering at the University of Michigan.
When war intervened, Klamer joined the US Navy midshipman school at Northwestern University and served in the South Pacific. After the war he started an advertising agency before joining Ideal Toy Company, and later became an executive with another toy firm, Eldon Industries.
In the mid-1960s he was approached by the makers of to devise a suitable weapon for the secret agents Napoleon Solo and Ilya Kuryakin (played by Robert Vaughn and David Mccallum respectively).
He came up with the “U.N.C.L.E. Special”, a semi-automatic pistol that converted into a fully automatic carbine-sniper rifle. He also devised a children’s version for the Ideal Toy Company.
He was also approached by Gene Roddenberry, who was in the process of creating Star Trek, to make a suitably futuristic weapon. Klamer came up with the large-scale phaser that appeared in the third episode, “Where No Man Has Gone Before”.
The Game of Life came about when Klamer approached the Milton Bradley company with an idea that they rejected, asking him instead to come up with a game to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the original Game. “I wandered through their archives … and on the wall there’s a checkerboard,” he recalled. “I went up closer and I brushed off the dust and on the bottom it said ‘Checkered Game of Life’. When I saw that name ‘Life’ I exploded! That was the theme.”
Among the other 200 or so toys Klamer created were the Spin-a-hoop, Gaylord the Walking Dog, Busy Blocks and Fisher-price Preschool Trainer Skates.
Before Bill Markham’s death in 1993, he and Klamer had clashed over who was primarily responsible for the Game of Life, In 2021, Markham’s heirs sued Hasbro, who had acquired the rights to Milton Bradley products, in an attempt to recover copyright interest, but were unsuccessful.
Reuben Klamer, who was twice married and divorced, is survived by three sons and a daughter; another son predeceased him.
Reuben Klamer, born June 18 1922, died September 14 2021