Joyce Randolph was an actress known best for playing Trixie Norton on the classic sitcom “The Honeymooners.”
- Died: January 13, 2024 (Who else died on January 13?)
- Details of death: Died at her home in New York City at the age of 99.
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The Honeymooners
Despite only running for 39 episodes, “The Honeymooners” became the template of countless American television sitcoms and even a cartoon series. She played Trixie, the wife of Art Carney’s (1918–2003) sewer worker, Ed Norton, and best friend of housewife Alice Kramden, played by Audrey Meadows (1922–1996). They all lived together in a working-class Brooklyn apartment building alongside Jackie Gleason’s (1916–1987) loudmouth bus driver, Ralph Kramden.
Career beginnings
Born Joyce Sirola Oct. 21, 1924, in Detroit, she moved to New York City in 1943 to pursue her acting career. She began appearing onstage and soon transitioned into the new medium of television. The New York press dubbed her the Garbo of Detroit. In a 2007 New York Times article, she laughed off the label.
“I was a nobody in Detroit,” Randolph said. “Why Garbo? Well, she was Scandinavian – and so was I.”
Television production at the time resembled under-rehearsed live theater, with actors changing costumes behind the walls of sets while avoiding the many cables that ran across the floor. Makeup also was far different, requiring black lipstick and other unrealistic touches to appear “normal” on black-and-white TV sets. As she recounted in an interview with the Archive of American Television, “It was all live then, and scary.”
Many of her early roles were in murder mysteries, and at one point she was promoted as the most murdered girl on television.
Making a TV classic
In 1951, she caught Jackie Gleason’s eye while appearing in live commercials for Clorets breath mints on his show “Cavalcade of Stars.” Gleason later cast Randolph as Trixie Norton in the recurring sketch, “The Honeymooners.” This sketch proved so popular that it became its own show, one of TV’s first spinoffs, from 1955 to 1956.
The show was famously canceled after only one season because Gleason didn’t feel the material being written for a second season was strong enough. However, the show was hugely influential and inspired many imitators, most notably “The Flintstones.” It could be said that Randolph’s Trixie provided the template for Betty Rubble.
Later life
“The Honeymooners” would return as a sketch on “The Jackie Gleason Show” in the 1960s, but Randolph and co-star Meadows did not resume their roles, as the new show was being taped in Florida. Instead, Randolph retired from acting to devote time to raising a family. She would work occasionally in commercials and even reprised the Trixie role in 1991 for an episode of “Hi Honey, I’m Home,” a comedy about 1950s sitcom characters transported to the 1990s.
Randolph on fans who only remember her as Trixie Norton
“I talk to everyone. You can’t be hoity. But I know what they really want is the name Trixie Norton, so I sign that, too.” –from an interview with the New York Times
Tributes to Joyce Randolph
Full obituary: The New York Times
