When I think of Jack Klugman, who died this morning at age 90, I don’t think of Quincy or Oscar Madison in the Odd Couple TV series. I think only of his Juror #5 character in Sidney Lumet‘s 12 Angry Men, and the following line: “I played in backyards that were filled with garbage. Maybe you can still smell it on me.” I like the way Klugman spoke quietly in that scene.

I also think of a story Klugman once told on (I think) The Dick Cavett Show. His wife was trying on different evening outfits as he sat nearby in their living room, he said. She was wearing skimpy or no underwear, he said, so every time she took off a dress she was Venus di Milo. And she was near a large living room window. As he sat there Klugman thought to himself, he said, “Gee, I wish I was across the street with a pair of binoculars.”