Seven decades have passed since Jackie Gleason cast Joyce Randolph as his fourth banana in the classic TV sketch “The Honeymooners” (1951-57). Six years of original broadcasts – and untold thousands of black-and-white reruns in the ensuing half-century – have made the actress a TV icon of sorts.
Gleason played loudmouthed Brooklyn bus driver Ralph Kramden, he of the big ideas and get-rich-quick schemes. Audrey Meadows was Alice, his no-nonsense wife, and Art Carney was his neighbor, happy-go-lucky sewer worker Ed Norton. Randolph played Trixie, Norton’s wife and Alice’s best friend. Often the two wives were in cahoots to get something from their husbands.
The genealogy of The Honeymooners is far more elaborate than that of most TV shows. The series ran under the title The Honeymooners for only one season, in 1955-56 on CBS.
Randolph began as Trixie on Cavalcade of Stars in 1951 and remains identified with the character to this day.
“Bus drivers know me,” she said with a laugh. “When I get on, they say: ‘You’re Trixie! Oh, my God!’??”
During a recent interview at the Lambs, the famed New York theatrical club, Randolph was a vivacious, chatty vision in pink. She still styles her hair in Trixie’s curly bob and bangs, and remains as slim as she was on the show.
She has a remarkably sharp memory and attributes her good health to vast quantities of vitamins and dietary supplements.
“I’ve been on omega-3 fish oil for years,” Randolph said. “And Coenzyme Q10, you have to take that. Resveratrol supplements are supposed to have the same benefits as red wine; I take that, too – with a little red wine.”
“The Honeymooners” made her career.
She never auditioned for the part. She was doing live commercials for Clorets breath mints on Cavalcade of Stars and Cavalcade of Bands (1950-51) when she heard that Gleason wanted her to work opposite him in a dramatic skit on Cavalcade of Stars. She took the role.
“We just played ourselves. Nobody told us to characterize in any way. It was learn those lines and go on,” Randolph said. “I was glad my spot was fairly small, so I could get off and let the others worry about it.”
The cast members weren’t pals off the set. “When the show was over,” she said, “everybody ran their own way.”
Gleason resumed “The Honeymooners” on a revamped Jackie Gleason Show (1966-70) with Carney along for the ride, but Sheila MacRae and Jane Kean played Alice and Trixie.
Randolph was wed to magazine-group sales director Richard Charles for 42 years, until he died in 1997. Their son, Randolph Charles, is a marketing executive for a book publisher.
