Regina Hall will play Trixie Norton in the upcoming movie version of TV’s fabled sitcom “The Honeymooners,” which stars Cedric the Entertainer and Gabrielle Union as Ralph and Alice Kramden. But the honeymoon isn’t over yet for Joyce Randolph, who played the orginal Trixie.
Randolph, 79, whisks into the lobby of 3 W. 51st St. with the same alacrity she first swept through the always-unlocked door of the Kramdens’ Brooklyn apartment over 50 years ago.
“Sorry I’m late,” Randolph says, three minutes behind schedule.
Slim, bright-eyed and nimble, she greets me with familiar zest. She presses the fourth-floor elevator button to The Lamb’s Club, the oldest theatrical club in America. She’s been a member since 1943 when, as Joyce Sirola, a struggling 18-year-old Finnish-American actress from Detroit, she came to New York looking to conquer Broadway.
“I already had an Equity card from doing a touring revival of ‘Stage Door,'” she says. “And after that show, another actress named Marie and I took an overnight train to New York for $18.
75, booked into the Ashley Hotel on W. 47th St., and started making the rounds.
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Randolph appeared on Broadway with Gloria Swanson in “A Goose for the Gander,” which bombed, and then “Good Night, Ladies,” which had a good run.
After doing a lot of summer stock, “I started going out on auditions for TV,” she says. “All the half-hour murder mysteries were here and soon I became the most murdered actress on television.
”
Randolph’s life changed forever in 1951 when she did a live Clorets commercial on “Cavalcade of Stars,” starring Jackie Gleason. A few weeks later Randolph appeared in a serious skit with Gleason, which led to an audition for the part of Trixie on a regular “Cavalcade” piece called “The Honeymooners.
”
“But Jackie Gleason’s idea of a rehearsal was one run-through the day of the show and then live TV that night,” she says. “Jackie said, ‘Comedy’s not funny if it’s overrehearsed.
‘ Listen, he sure knew something, because ‘The Honeymooners’ is still running all these years later. Anyway, I got the role of Trixie. Channel 5 only paid scale – $157.
50 a week.
”
The next year her salary went up to $250 when CBS bought “Cavalcade of Stars.
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Randolph says Pert Kelton was the first Alice Kramden, but when CBS refused to hire her because she was on a Communist blacklist, the part went to Audrey Meadows.
“We’d get the scripts on Thursday night,” Randolph says. “Friday we’d get Jackie’s changes. On Saturday afternoon we’d do the read-through and go on the air live on Saturday night.
“Art Carney, who was a sweetheart of a man, could keep right up with Jackie. But Audrey was so nervous she was in tears the first time out. After that, she’d memorize everyone’s lines and if anyone forgot a line, Audrey’d lead the way. Jackie also had a rule: If you had to ad-lib, do it in character.
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Randolph says Meadows was also business-savvy. “Her manager was the only one who ever thought of asking for residuals,” she says. “I sure didn’t. This was live TV. No one ever imagined reruns. I didn’t get any residuals until the lost episodes were discovered many years later.
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Randolph says Gleason was a great guy. “But he was odd,” she says. “He kept his distance, very much the boss. But he was always a gentleman. He was misrepresented by one biographer, William Henry III, who portrayed him as a monster. He wasn’t. He was tough on the writers, but he was a perfectionist – and just look at the writing he got out of them!
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Randolph met her future husband, Richard Charles, a wealthy ad executive, while doing “The Honeymooners.
” After the show ended, she gave birth to a son, Randolph, and found herself being typecast. “I did some theater and commercials, but I was happy being a wife and a new mother,” she says. A widow since 1997, she lives on Central Park West.
“Never in our wildest dreams did we think we were making TV history,”
Randolph says. “But there isn’t a day that goes by when I’m not deeply proud to have been part of ‘The Honeymooners.
‘”
E-mail: dhamill@edit.
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