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Jamie Farr on playing Klinger: ''In a sense, it ruined my career.''
"People, they don't separate the character from Jamie Farr the actor," he said.
For many actors, an iconic role can be both a blessing and a curse, depending on how optimistic you are. For his part, Jamie Farr was always grateful for the opportunity to play Corporal Klinger in the series M*A*S*H. It was a role that only grew in size and importance as the series went on. By the final episode of M*A*S*H in 1983, Klinger had become an integral part of the 4077th.
But to be known for such an iconic character can have its pitfalls. During an interview with the St. Petersburg Times, Farr claimed that playing Klinger had hurt his chances of landing another television series once M*A*S*H was off the air.
"In a sense, it ruined my career," Farr said. "I was accurate in that because I haven't had a television series since then. It's been hard to shake that character."
The issue, Farr emphasized, was one of identity. "People, they don't separate the character from Jamie Farr the actor," he said. "The first thing they do is hit you with dress jokes." Audiences looked to Farr and only saw Klinger, and it was a pattern that television producers unfortunately followed.
Farr also had a hard time publishing his autobiography, due to the fact that it had a notable lack of salacious details.
"Getting a publisher was extremely difficult," he said. "Nobody wanted that kind of book. What they wanted was: Why do I hate Alan Alda? And I would tell them, 'I don't hate Alan Alda!'"
Farr wasn't interested in focusing on the negatives, however. He was far more consumed by telling the truth of his life, which incidentally, was pretty darn good.
"I had so many wonderful stories I wanted to tell," he said. "I'm so tired of these Mommie Dearest kind of books...peeking through keyholes and dumping on other actors. I didn't want that...first of all, that didn't happen with us [the cast of M*A*S*H]. We really had a very enjoyable time doing the series."
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