Charles durning movies list6/21/2023 Two years later, Congress expanded the law to include biological and chemical drugs, which helped spur the biotech industry.Ĭharles Durning was one of the most talented and durable of character actors. One of the first developed under the law was AZT, the early AIDS treatment. The FDA has approved more than 300 orphan drugs, with 1,100 more under development. In an ending Hollywood might have scripted, it has been a remarkable success. To shoot the scene, the show’s producers hired 500 extras who really did suffer from rare diseases….Thanks to Klugman, the Waxman-Hatch Orphan Drug Act became law in 1983. Peering down, the senator sees a huge crowd gathered with signs that read “We Want the Orphan Drug Act” and relents. In the pivotal scene, Quincy confronts the senator in his office and demands that he look out the window. He and his brother wrote a second “Quincy” episode, this one revolving around an orphan drug bill that was being held up by a heartless (fictitious) senator. In a fit of pique, Jack Klugman hit upon a novel idea. It also established an Office of Rare Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. That led to a bill with three big incentives for drug makers: a lighter regulatory burden for developing new orphan drugs, a seven-year monopoly, and a 90-percent tax credit for the cost of clinical trials. The New York Times ran a front-page story on Klugman and orphan diseases. Nowadays on Capitol Hill, you’re as likely to run into Bono or Ben Affleck as your own representative. But at the time, a bona fide celebrity speaking to Congress was a huge deal. To capitalize on the publicity and build momentum for a bill, Rep. Henry Waxman (D) of California, the subcommittee chairman, invited Jack Klugman to testify before Congress. Maurice Klugman wrote an episode of “Quincy” about Tourette’s and the orphan drug problem. But the article caught the eye of a Hollywood writer and producer named Maurice Klugman, who himself suffered from a rare cancer and also happened to be Jack Klugman’s brother. The issue of orphan diseases was so obscure that only a single newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, sent a reporter to the hearing (and the Times only did so because a local boy suffering from Tourette’s testified). I especially like his performance in the classic “Twelve Angry Men.” But his most powerful influence may be in his work for “orphan drugs.” The Washington Post tells the story of how “he also played an instrumental role in passing critical health-care legislation, the Orphan Drug Act, through Congress in the early 1980s.” Jack Klugman is best remembered for his starring roles in two long-running television series, as the slob half of The Odd Couple and as the feisty medical examiner in Quincy, M.E. Klugman won two Emmys for his work in the 1970s sitcom “The Odd Couple” - tellingly for playing a classic one-of-the-guys character, the slobby Oscar Madison, in a show that was essentially a two-man ensemble piece (Tony Randall being the other half of the “couple”). Durning earned an Oscar nomination (the first of two) for his flashy turn as the governor of Texas in the 1982 film “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas”(though, again, he was a secondary character, supporting Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton). Redford, who was that, a little way down the credits list in both films? Mr. Hoffman and “The Sting” was a showcase for Mr. Durning had their star turns too, but their careers were fueled more by supporting roles and ensemble work, jobs that require a different skill set, a knack for being plain old joes. The New York Times points out that both men were successful not because they looked and acted like movie stars but because they looked and acted like real people. The passing of Jack Klugman and Charles Durning, two actors with decades of fine performances in movies and television, reminds us that they made very significant contributions in other ways as well.
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