https://www.tmz.com/2024/01/14/honeymooners-joyce-randolph-dead-dies-trixie-norton-jackie-gleason/

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/14/obituaries/joyce-randolph-dead.html

Joyce Randolph, Last of the ‘Honeymooners,’ Is Dead at 99

Ms. Randolph, who played Trixie Norton in the classic sitcom, was the last survivor of a cast of four that dominated Saturday night TV.

By Robert D. McFadden

Jan. 14, 2024Updated 2:53 p.m. ET

Joyce Randolph, who played Trixie Norton, the wife of a guffawing, rubber-limbed sewer worker forever mired in a blowhard neighbor’s get-rich-quick schemes and other hazards of life on the classic 1950s sitcom “The Honeymooners,” died on Saturday at her home in Manhattan. She was 99.

Her son, Randy Charles, confirmed her death.

She was the last survivor of a cast of four that dominated the Saturday night viewing habits of millions in the golden age of live television, and for decades afterward on rerun broadcasts and home video. Jackie Gleason (Ralph Kramden) died in 1987; Audrey Meadows (Ralph’s wife, Alice) in 1996; and Art Carney (Ed Norton) in 2003.

In an age when status symbols in a gritty Brooklyn tenement were telephones, television sets and refrigerators, the Kramdens had none on a bus driver’s $62 a week. Reflecting America’s working-class experience, they struggled for a better life, shared disappointments and had fun, even if there was no uranium mine in Asbury Park and no market for glow-in-the-dark wallpaper, no-cal pizza or “KramMar’s Delicious Mystery Appetizer,” which turned out to be dog food.

As Trixie, Ms. Randolph played the upstairs wife who crossed her arms and commiserated with her best friend, Alice, over addlepated husbands who somehow got drunk on grape juice, found a suitcase of the mob’s counterfeit cash, invented a “handy” kitchen tool that could “core a apple” and, after waiting all year for the convention of their International Order of Friendly Raccoons, took the wrong train.

While her character was less developed than the others, Ms. Randolph was revered by aficionados as the last living link to the inspired lunacy of a show that had a cultlike following, with fan clubs, esoteric trivia contests and memorabilia sales. At a 1984 Long Island meeting of the Royal Association for the Longevity and Preservation of the Honeymooners, or RALPH, one could buy a size-52 bus driver’s uniform or a coveted Trixie apron.

Ms. Randolph appeared in the program’s heyday from 1951 to 1957. It was first a skit on “Cavalcade of Stars,” a DuMont network variety show featuring Mr. Gleason. From 1952 to 1954, it was a segment on CBS’s “The Jackie Gleason Show.” In 1955-56, it was a self-contained half-hour CBS series, whose 39 episodes were filmed before a live audience of 1,000. Finally in 1957, it reappeared as part of “The Jackie Gleason Show.”

At the peak of the show’s popularity, Ms. Randolph was its lowest-salaried star at $500 a week. Mr. Gleason had contracts that paid millions, but he covered all the production costs and took $65,000 to $70,000 an episode. Mr. Carney was paid $3,500 and Ms. Meadows $2,000 weekly.

The cast had no illusions about making television history, and for Ms. Randolph, “The Honeymooners” was hardly even a full-time job. There was only one rehearsal, hours before airtime.

“We never saw Jackie until 11 a.m. on Saturday, the morning of the show,” she recalled in an interview with The New York Times. “At lunchtime there was just one run-through with Jackie. He said that comedy didn’t work if it was overrehearsed.”

She was born Joyce Sirola in Detroit on Oct. 21, 1924, one of two children of Carl and Mary Sirola. Her father, a Finnish immigrant, was a butcher.

She graduated from Cooley High School in Detroit and moved to New York in 1943. She began acting at 19, joining a road company production of “Stage Door.”

After touring with “Abie’s Irish Rose” and “Good Night, Ladies,” she made her Broadway debut in 1945 in “A Goose for the Gander,” starring Gloria Swanson. In the late 1940s, she was increasingly on television, seen with Eddie Cantor, Danny Thomas, Fred Allen and the comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

Mr. Gleason spotted her in a 1951 chewing-gum commercial and hired her for a skit on his “Cavalcade of Stars.” She later joined “The Honeymooners,” replacing Elaine Stritch as Trixie after one performance. By then she was known as Joyce Randolph.

“The Honeymooners” was the high point of her career, but it allowed time for many other television roles, mostly as a victim of murder and mayhem. “In the past year,” a 1952 New York Daily News profile said, “TV actress Joyce Randolph has been shot 14 times, strangled four times, stabbed with a penknife three times, tossed out of windows twice, and run down by a speeding limousine once.”

In 1955, Ms. Randolph married Richard Charles, a business executive. He died in 1997. Their son, Randy, is her only survivor.

After leaving “The Honeymooners,” which was revived with various casts in the ’60s and ’70s, she found herself typecast and largely gave up acting, except for occasional television and personal appearances.

Ms. Randolph dedicated an eight-foot bronze statue of Mr. Gleason at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in 2000. She got a standing ovation at a U.S.O. gala in New York in 2006.

“I guess all those young Marines watch television,” she said.

Jack Kadden contributed reporting.

Side story about the show (not about Randolph).

I tried to find this in Google Books and couldn't - it was some sitcom encyclopedia. So I will write it from memory as best I can.

"Audrey Meadows wanted the part (of Alice). Gleason said no; she was too well known as one of the most beautiful women in New York; he wanted someone briny and frumpy. Meadows hired a photographer to wake her up early and take photos. When Gleason saw the photos, he hired her."

Lenona <lenona321@yahoo.com> wrote:

>Side story about the show (not about Randolph).

>I tried to find this in Google Books and couldn't - it was some sitcom
>encyclopedia. So I will write it from memory as best I can.

>"Audrey Meadows wanted the part (of Alice). Gleason said no; she was too
>well known as one of the most beautiful women in New York; he wanted
>someone briny and frumpy. Meadows hired a photographer to wake her up
>early and take photos. When Gleason saw the photos, he hired her."

Sure. There are beautiful and glamorous actresses who must "de-glam" in
order to get cast. Jennifer Lawrence is said to have ruined her look and
makeup running through the rain in order to create the look the
producers wanted so she could get cast as Ree in Winter's Bone (2010),
the role that made her career. Irene Dunne had to deglam to get cast as
Mama in I Remember Mama (1948); she was nominated for Best Actress.

There are numerous other examples.

The original Alice was Pert Kelton. She performed the role in nine skits
between 1951 and 1952. She also played Mrs. Paroo in The Music Man,
both on Broadway and in the 1962 movie adaptation. Sadly, she had heart
problems and died in 1968.

The sketch originated on Cavalcade of Star hosted by Jackie Gleason on
DuMont, and he kept the sketch upon moving the show to CBS. The skit was
reworked as the stand-alone sitcom, 39 episodes for the 1955-56
television season, replacing the variety show, because Gleason was a
consumate businessman and wanted something to sell to the second run
syndication market which barely existed at the time!

In article <uppnpa$56ga$1@dont-email.me>, Adam H. Kerman
<ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

> The original Alice was Pert Kelton. She performed the role in nine skits
> between 1951 and 1952. She also played Mrs. Paroo in The Music Man,
> both on Broadway and in the 1962 movie adaptation. Sadly, she had heart
> problems and died in 1968.

Pert Kelton was caught up in the blacklist because her husband, Ralph
Bell, had been listed in a publication called Red Channels, which
purported to expose communists working in the entertainment industry.
Gleason was forced by CBS to fire Kelton, but he later recast her as
Alice's mother in one of the Honeymooners sketches on his 1960s variety
show. When he brought out the cast at the end of that show, he told a
little bit of her story.

A Friend wrote:
>Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

>>The original Alice was Pert Kelton. She performed the role in nine skits
>>between 1951 and 1952. She also played Mrs. Paroo in The Music Man,
>>both on Broadway and in the 1962 movie adaptation. Sadly, she had heart
>>problems and died in 1968.

>Pert Kelton was caught up in the blacklist because her husband, Ralph
>Bell, had been listed in a publication called Red Channels, which
>purported to expose communists working in the entertainment industry.
>Gleason was forced by CBS to fire Kelton, but he later recast her as
>Alice's mother in one of the Honeymooners sketches on his 1960s variety
>show. When he brought out the cast at the end of that show, he told a
>little bit of her story.

Huh. I never read that she was affected by the Blacklist in any of my tv
reference books. I assumed she returned to Broadway.

Thanks

Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
>A Friend wrote:
>>Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

>>>The original Alice was Pert Kelton. She performed the role in nine skits
>>>between 1951 and 1952. She also played Mrs. Paroo in The Music Man,
>>>both on Broadway and in the 1962 movie adaptation. Sadly, she had heart
>>>problems and died in 1968.

>>Pert Kelton was caught up in the blacklist because her husband, Ralph
>>Bell, had been listed in a publication called Red Channels, which
>>purported to expose communists working in the entertainment industry.
>>Gleason was forced by CBS to fire Kelton, but he later recast her as
>>Alice's mother in one of the Honeymooners sketches on his 1960s variety
>>show. When he brought out the cast at the end of that show, he told a
>>little bit of her story.

>Huh. I never read that she was affected by the Blacklist in any of my tv
>reference books. I assumed she returned to Broadway.

>Thanks

Ok. The list she was on came out in 1951. The Wikipedia article suggests
that Gleason was pressured to fire her while the Cavalcade of Stars was
in its final season on DuMont but Gleason kept her on the show through
the end of the DuMont run. IMDb says her last appearance was May 30,
1952, so that matches, as Alice in a Honeymooners sketch.

It sounds like CBS never approved her hiring. She never was on his show
after it moved to CBS.

The heart problems was a lie told by producers trying to save her
career. I guess the Red Channels blacklist wasn't as widely known as
other blacklists.

Maybe she didn't have diagnosed heart problems at the time, but she did
die of a heart attack.