Rise to Fame
He got the job by accident. A one-day bit part in 1972 as Corporal Klinger, a Toledo man in a dress scheming his way to a psychiatric discharge, and somehow he was still there 11 years later. The character worked because the joke had a human heart under it. Klinger wasn't a fool. He was desperate, resourceful, and deeply homesick. Farr, a Lebanese-American from Toledo himself, played it with a specificity that a hired hand couldn't have brought. He'd spent a decade doing forgettable TV before M*A*S*H made him someone worth remembering.
In the Spotlight
M*A*S*H ended in 1983 with 106 million viewers. That number hasn't really stopped following Farr around. The show runs in perpetual syndication, and Klinger in a dress is still entering someone's living room every day. He hosted an LPGA tournament in Toledo for 28 years, raising over $6.5 million for children's charities before stepping down. At 91, he's less a working actor than a Toledo landmark, which is probably fine with him.
Side Notes
Farr was born Jameel Joseph Farah, and the Klinger-Toledo connection wasn't coincidence. The writers made Klinger Lebanese-American from Toledo specifically for Farr, letting him drop real references into the show, like Tony Packo's Cafe. He eventually phased out the cross-dressing because his kids were old enough to get teased about it on the playground. Farr was also drafted into the actual U.S. Army in 1957, toured real MASH units in Korea with Red Skelton, and wore his real dog tags on the TV set. The character was closer to autobiography than most people realized.