Tony Randall - Personal Life

Personal Life

Randall was married to Florence Gibbs from 1942 until her death from cancer in 1992. The following year, he said, "I wish I believed I'd see my parents again, see my wife again. But I know it's not going to happen." He remarried on November 17, 1995, to Heather Harlan, an intern in one of his theatrical programs. At the time, Tony was 75, Heather 25. The couple subsequently had two children, Julia Laurette Randall (b. 1997) and Jefferson Salvini Randall (b. 1998), and they remained married until his death in 2004.

In his book Which Reminds Me, he proclaimed that any publicity an actor generates should be about his work, not himself. "The public knows only one thing about me: I don't smoke", he proclaimed. But by 1995, he revised his opinion, and made his engagement and marriage to Harlan, and subsequent fatherhood, quite public. For the most part, the media treated the marriage in a light-hearted spirit, but when the two became parents, not everyone was convinced the couple was completely forthright regarding how the babies were conceived.