Jack Klugman 12 Angry Men (1957)
Jack Klugman (1922–2012), born in South Philadelphia to working-class Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, played Juror 5 in 12 Angry Men (1957) — the slum kid who has been quiet through the early scenes and goes still when Juror 10 talks about "those people."
Klugman came out of poverty and the Carnegie Tech drama school
Klugman was born in 1922 in a poor section of South Philadelphia. He served in the Army during World War II, used the GI Bill to enroll at Carnegie Mellon's drama program, and arrived in New York with twenty-three dollars. He shared an apartment with Charles Bronson — both unknown, both broke — and worked through the early 1950s in television (The U.S. Steel Hour, Studio One, Kraft Television Theatre) and the New York stage. 12 Angry Men was his second feature film, after Timetable (1956).
"I was born in a neighborhood very much like the one in this picture. When I read the script, I knew the room. I knew Juror 10. I had heard that speech my whole life." — Jack Klugman, Television Academy Foundation Interview (2007)
Juror 5 is the film's quiet witness to the bigotry
Klugman has the smallest amount of dialogue of any actor in the principal cast in the first half of the film. He sits, listens, and reacts. The structural choice is deliberate: Juror 5 is the one juror whose biographical relationship to the case is closest — he grew up in a slum, he has lived among the people Juror 10 is generalizing about, he has used a switchblade. Klugman plays the early scenes as a man absorbing what is being said about him without revealing that it is about him.
The vote-switch arrives in beat 18, after Juror 9's monologue about the old man witness and a flare-up in which Juror 11 mocks Juror 10's grammar. The shift is procedural; Klugman plays it as procedural. There is no speech.
The lived-experience moment comes around the rain (beat 28), when Juror 5 returns to the prosecution's switchblade and demonstrates the underhand grip — the way someone who has actually used a switch knife handles it. The line — "Anyone who's ever used a switch knife wouldn't handle it any other way" — is the only piece of physical reasoning in the film that is not research-driven, and Klugman delivers it as a man finally explaining something he has known all along.
"Klugman is the picture's best example of how Lumet used the cast. The part is small, the lines are few, and yet by the time the rain starts, you have learned more about Juror 5 than you have about half the more talkative men in the room." — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times — "Great Movies" (2002)
Klugman remembered Henry Fonda's gift
Klugman gave a widely-quoted account of Fonda's mentorship on the picture — Fonda noticed Klugman's nerves on the first day and quietly supported him through the early scenes. Klugman said Fonda's kindness shaped how he himself behaved on subsequent sets.
"On the first day of shooting, I was so nervous my hands were shaking. Henry Fonda came over, put his arm around me, and said: 'It's just like television, Jack. We've got nothing to be afraid of.' I never forgot that. I tried to do that for younger actors my whole career." — Jack Klugman, Tony Randall and Jack Klugman tribute — Television Academy (2012)
After 12 Angry Men, television became Klugman's home
Klugman did film steadily through the 1960s but found his real medium in television. He won three Emmy Awards — for The Defenders (with E.G. Marshall (in 12 Angry Men)) in 1964, and twice for The Odd Couple opposite Tony Randall (1971, 1973). He starred in Quincy, M.E. through the late 1970s and 1980s. He continued working into his eighties despite a 1989 throat cancer diagnosis that cost him part of his vocal cords; his voice in the last decades was a raspy whisper, and he kept acting anyway.
Selected filmography and television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1956 | Timetable | Feature debut | |
| 1957 | 12 Angry Men | Juror 5 | |
| 1959 | Days of Wine and Roses (TV) | Jim Hungerford | Playhouse 90 |
| 1960 | Gypsy (Broadway) | Herbie | Opposite Ethel Merman |
| 1962 | Days of Wine and Roses (film) | Jim Hungerford | Blake Edwards |
| 1968 | The Detective | Lt. Curran | |
| 1970-75 | The Odd Couple (TV) | Oscar Madison | Two Emmys |
| 1976-83 | Quincy, M.E. (TV) | Dr. R. Quincy |