Joyce Randolph, who played Trixie Norton in the classic 1950s sitcom “The Honeymooners,” the wife of a laughing, rubber-legged sewer worker forever entangled in an overconfident neighbor's get-rich-quick schemes and other perils of life, died on Saturday at 5:00 p.m. at her home in Manhattan. She was 99.
Her death was confirmed to The Associated Press by her son Randolph Charles.
She was the last survivor of a four-member cast that dominated the Saturday night viewing habits of millions during the golden age of live television and for decades on reruns 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.
At a time when status symbols in a gritty Brooklyn tenement were telephones, televisions and refrigerators, the Kramdens had none for a bus driver's $62 a week. They reflected the experience of the American working class: They fought 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-calorie pizza, or KramMar's Delicious Mystery Appetizer “, which turned out to be dog food.
As Trixie, Ms. Randolph played the woman upstairs who folded her arms and complained to her best friend Alice about confused husbands who somehow got drunk on grape juice, found a suitcase full of the gang's counterfeit money, and invented a “handy” kitchen tool that could “coring an apple” and made the wrong move after waiting all year for the convention of his International Order of Friendly Raccoons.
While her character was less developed than the others, Ms. Randolph was revered by fans as the last living link to the inspired madness of a show that had a cult-like following, with fan clubs, esoteric trivia contests and memorabilia sales. At a meeting of the Royal Association for the Longevity and Preservation of the Honeymooners (RALPH) on Long Island in 1984, you could buy a size 52 bus driver uniform or a coveted Trixie apron.
Ms. Randolph appeared during the program's heyday from 1951 to 1957. It started out as a sketch on “Cavalcade of Stars,” a variety show on the DuMont Network starring Mr. Gleason. From 1952 to 1954, it was part of the CBS series “The Jackie Gleason Show.” In 1955–56, it was a standalone half-hour CBS series whose 39 episodes were filmed before a live audience of 1,000. It finally resurfaced in 1957 as part of The Jackie Gleason Show.
At the height of the show's popularity, Ms. Randolph was the lowest-paid star at $500 a week. Mr. Gleason had contracts that made millions, but he covered all production costs and took in $65,000 to $70,000 per episode. Mr. Carney was paid $3,500 a week and Ms. Meadows was paid $2,000.
The cast had no illusions about making television history, and for Ms. Randolph, “The Honeymooners” was hardly a full-time job. There was only one rehearsal, hours before broadcast time.
“We didn’t see 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 only one run-through with Jackie. He said that a comedy doesn’t work if it’s over-rehearsed.”
She was born Joyce Sirola on October 21, 1924 in Detroit, 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 the age of 19 and took part in 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. By the late 1940s she was increasingly seen on television, appearing with Eddie Cantor, Danny Thomas, Fred Allen and the comedy team Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
Mr. Gleason spotted her in a bubble gum commercial in 1951 and hired her for a sketch in his “Cavalcade of Stars.” She later joined The Honeymooners, replacing Elaine Stritch as Trixie after one appearance. At this point she was known as Joyce Randolph.
The Honeymooners was the highlight of her career, but it gave her time for many other television roles, most notably as a victim of murder and mayhem. “Last year,” says a 1952 New York Daily News profile, “television actress Joyce Randolph was shot 14 times, strangled four times, stabbed three times with a pocket knife, thrown out of a window twice and run over by a speeder . “One limousine.”
In 1955, Ms. Randolph married Richard Charles, a business executive. They had a son, Randolph. Her husband died in 1997.
Information on survivors was not immediately available.
After leaving The Honeymooners, which was revived with various casts in the '60s and '70s, she was pigeonholed and largely gave up acting, aside from occasional television and private appearances.
Ms. Randolph dedicated an eight-foot bronze statue to Mr. Gleason at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in 2000. She received a standing ovation at a USO gala in New York in 2006.
“I guess all these young Marines are watching TV,” she said.