| Joyce Randolph | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Joyce Sirola |
| Born | October 21 1924 Detroit, Michigan, United States
|
Joyce Randolph, (born Joyce Sirola on October 21, 1924) is a Finnish-American actress, best known for playing Trixie Norton on The Honeymooners. Randolph was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan and moved to New York City in 1943 to pursue an acting career. She took roles on Broadway and landed various television roles.[1] In 1951, she was seen in a Clorets commercial by Jackie Gleason and was asked to appear in a skit on “Cavalcade of Stars", Gleason's variety show on the DuMont Television Network. Soon after, she was cast as Trixie in The Honeymooners.[1] Several New York write-ups referred to her as the "Garbo of Detroit". “That’s still a mystery.” Miss Randolph stated. “I was a nobody in Detroit. Why Garbo? Well, she was Scandinavian — and so was I.” Randolph is the last surviving member of the famous Honeymooners quartet, which included Jackie Gleason as Ralph Kramden, Art Carney as Ed Norton, Audrey Meadows as Alice Kramden (after replacing a blacklisted Pert Kelton), and Randolph as Trixie Norton. Randolph was not the very first "Trixie Norton"; Elaine Stritch appeared as a burlesque "Trixie" in approximately 1951 in Cavalcade of Stars, where the premise for The Honeymooners first took root. She first met her future Honeymooners co-star Meadows long before they did the television series; they met as fellow actresses in a summer stock production of No, No, Nanette. Randolph married Richard Lincoln Charles, a wealthy marketing executive, in a Baptist church on Long Island, New York, on October 2, 1955. Charles died in 1997 at age 74. Their son, Randolph Richard Charles, born in 1960, is a marketing executive in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[1] Randolph is presently on the Board of the USO.
References
- ^ a b c Collins, Glenn (2007-01-27). For TV’s Trixie, the Honeymoon Lives On. The New York Times. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.
