Joyce Randolph

She was born Joyce Sirola, of Finnish descent, on October 21, 1924, in Detroit Michigan. As a teenager, her interest in acting grew and she eventually found her way to become a part of the Wayne University Workshop. After high school graduation, Joyce found employment in retail at a Saks Fifth Avenue store in Detroit. Auditioning for a Workshop tour of the play "Stage Door" in Detroit, she won the part and traveled with the company. She followed that tour with another tour, a revival of "Abie's Irish Rose" that ran for a year.

At age 18, Joyce moved to New York City during war-time (1943) to try her luck.

She made her Broadway debut in 1945 in the short-lived comedy "A Goose for the Gander" starring Gloria Swanson and Conrad Nagel at the Playhouse Theatre.

She began on TV as early as 1946 at General Electric's experimental laboratory in Schenectady, NY.

She returned to Broadway with "Ladies Night at a Turkish Bath" in 1950. She also appeared in summer stock and once performed in the musical "No, No, Nanette" with Ms. Meadows.

Having now changed her stage name from her christened name to the more inviting "Joyce Randolph," the actress began appearing on TV in 1950, finding parts on such regular programs as "The Colgate Comedy Hour," "Rocky King, Detective," "Buck Rogers," "The Clock," "I Cover Times Square" and "Famous Jury Trials. " By sheer luck, Joyce was spotted in a Clorets chewing gum commercial by Gleason himself the following year and was asked to appear in a skit on the "Cavalcade of Stars," Gleason's variety show on the DuMont Network. He liked her, he cast her then as Trixie, and the rest is TV history.

Lovely, sweet-natured Joyce Randolph will forever be etched in the minds of "Golden Age" television viewers as the Bowery-like fourth party of the classic husband/wife quartet on the enduring TV family comedy The Jackie Gleason Show (1952) starring Jackie Gleason as the irrepressible hothead bus driver Ralph Kramden.

Taking over the role played originally, and only once, by Elaine Stritch, when the part of Trixie was thought of as a burlesque girl, the skit format was changed to series form with The Honeymooners (1955). Caught in a terrible typecasting, Joyce would find it extremely hard obtaining other roles after the demise of the show.

She married Richard Lincoln Charles, a wealthy entrepreneur and marketing executive, on October 2, 1955, the day after The Honeymooners premiered.

Her acting career began at the age of 19 when she joined a touring company of the play "Stage Door". She later appeared in musicals, including "Plain and Fancy" in 1956.

As Thelma ("Trixie") Norton, the dressed-down, beleaguered wife of sewer worker Ed Norton (played by the adorably goofy Art Carney) and best friend to equally stern realist Alice Kramden (played by equally lovely Audrey Meadows), Joyce participated in nearly 100 episodes of the beloved show before it left the air in 1957.

Interestingly, when "The Honeymooners" sketches were revived on a revamped Gleason variety show in the 1960's, the roles of Alice and Trixie were taken over by Sheila MacRae and Jane Kean. Only Carney remained. Joyce would later say she did not revive her Trixie role due to "personal and geographic reasons. " Gleason had moved his company to Miami, Florida. Joyce maintained her career for awhile on the musical stage, in commercials, and with a few solo appearances on such shows as "The Jack Benny Show," and "The Doctors and the Nurses," but eventually retired from acting altogether.

He died at age 74 in 1997.

With Art Carney's passing in 2003, she became the only remaining survivor of The Honeymooners (1955) quartet. Jackie Gleason died in 1987 and Audrey Meadows in 1996.

As of January 2007, she could often be found sitting at the bar at Sardi's Restuarant in Manhattan, always gracious and pleased to meet [The Honeymooners (1955).] fans, signing autographs and being photographed.