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theracoonlodge · 8 years ago

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At Lunch With Joyce Randolph & Audrey Meadows

AT LUNCH WITH: Joyce Randolph and Audrey Meadows; Trixie and Alice, on Their Own By BRYAN MILLER Published: October 13, 1993

SOMETIMES an actress becomes so identified with one role in her career that the character clings to her as stubbornly as puppy hair to a navy blazer, impossible to brush off.

"For years after that role, directors would say: 'No, we can't use her. She's too well known as Trixie,' " said Joyce Randolph, who was immortalized as the wife of Ed Norton, the rubber-limbed sewer worker in the 1950's television sitcom "The Honeymooners."

A similar fate befell Audrey Meadows, who played the wisecracking wife of a blustering bus driver named Ralph Kramden, portrayed by Jackie Gleason. "After the series, I was lucky to do guest shots with Dinah Shore and Red Skelton, but almost all of the stuff I was offered was something in the kitchen, always in the damn kitchen," Miss Meadows recalled over lunch recently at Le Cirque in Manhattan.

For both women, still close and affectionate, their famous television personae hover above them like giant balloon characters at a Macy's parade, attracting throngs of nostalgic admirers and prompting dozens of letters a week.

Since "The Honeymooners," Miss Randolph's acting career has been limited to commercials and occasional musical summer stock. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, Richard L. Charles, a retired advertising executive. Miss Meadows, who lives in Beverly Hills, Calif., and has been divorced once and widowed once, has made many guest appearances on television shows and was in two subsequent sitcoms, "Too Close for Comfort" and "Uncle Buck." She has recently completed a book about "The Honeymooners" titled "Love, Alice," which is to be published by Crown next year.

Entering the restaurant wearing a shimmering pink-and-white Chanel suit and oversize tinted glasses, Miss Meadows was hardly recognizable as the tough-as-steel-wool spouse who fended off many threatened flights to the moon, courtesy of Ralph. Her once crystalline voice has taken on a cigarette-induced gruffness, but her distinctive inflection, familiar to all "Honeymooners" addicts, remains.

Miss Meadows began her career in musical comedies. The daughter of a missionary, she lived in China until age 5, when her family moved to California so that the children could be educated in the United States. "I first got into musical comedy as a teen-ager as the result of singing in church," she explained. She eventually joined road tours of shows like "High Button Shoes."

Miss Randolph had a similar theatrical background. After performing in local theater in her hometown of Detroit, she made the mythical trek to New York City in search of fame. In 1945, after several years of touring and appearing in Broadway shows, she found herself in Schenectady, N.Y., where the General Electric Company had some of its early television production studios.

"Mostly I remember the lights, which were so harsh, and that terrible black lipstick," she said, rubbing her lips as if trying to remove it.

The first television sketches were largely reworks of popular radio mysteries. "For a while I was publicized as the most murdered girl on television," Miss Randolph said, laughing.

Acting jobs were easier to find then than they are today. "We all were in the same kinds of bars and restaurants -- Sardi's, Lindy's, the Blue Angel," Miss Meadows recalled.

Miss Randolph found her way to the DuMont television network, where she was asked to do a Clorets commercial. She was such a hit that CBS asked her to do the same commercial on "Cavalcade of Stars," a variety show whose host was Mr. Gleason, a former nightclub comic who was a rising star.

It was on this show that Mr. Gleason began developing characters like Reginald Van Gleason 3d, Rudy the Repairman and Ralph Kramden. "Cavalcade of Stars" opened in 1950 and ran for two seasons, followed by two years of "The Jackie Gleason Show" and then, in 1955, "The Honeymooners."

Mr. Gleason liked the young "Clorets girl." So when he began casting "The Honeymooners" he offered the part of Trixie to Miss Randolph. For his stage wife, named Alice, he chose a seasoned actress named Pert Kelton. The part of the sewer worker went to Art Carney.

Miss Meadows, who eventually replaced Miss Kelton as Alice, was a pioneer in the early days of television, too, in both Chicago and New York City, doing bit parts in skits on variety shows as well as commercials. Her mellifluous voice won her a job in the comedic sketches of the radio duo Bob and Ray. While working on radio, she was asked to take a leading part in the Broadway musical "Top Banana," starring Phil Silvers.

On Broadway she became acquainted with Mr. Gleason's manager, Bullets Durgom. "He actually looked like a bullet -- bald, short, roundish," she said.

By this time, Mr. Gleason had moved his variety show, which included a "Honeymooners" sketch, to CBS. Just two weeks before the first show, he had to find a new actress to portray Alice because Miss Kelton had fallen ill.

Mr. Gleason supposedly rejected Miss Meadows for being "too young and too pretty." As Miss Meadows relates the story, she went home that evening, put on a frumpy housedress, changed her hair and had a photographer take pictures. Mr. Gleason saw the photos and hired her on the spot, not knowing he had rejected her the day before.

Did the two young actresses have any idea they were about to make television history?

"Heavens, no," Miss Randolph said, placing an open hand on her cheek, a la Trixie Norton. "Everything was so casual in those days, you never thought it would be important." In fact, Miss Meadows was the only one of the supporting cast who drew up a contract calling for residuals.

"The Honeymooners" achieved immortality with the 1955-56 television season, when 39 episodes were filmed at the Adelphi Theater on West 54th Street in Manhattan. The cast performed twice a week, Tuesday and Friday nights, before an audience of about 1,000.

Mr. Gleason loved spontaneity; hence, there was little or no rehearsal. Often the cast received the script the night before performing; it was not unusual for them to try on their costumes just before going on the air.

"I remember some nights when we had guests on the show, and I saw some of them vomiting in the wings from nervousness," Miss Randolph added.

Both actresses recalled one memorable fiasco on stage, during an episode called "Better Living Through TV," in which Ralph buys a warehouse full of fancy can openers and tries to sell them fast by appearing in a television commercial with Norton.

"The two of them are making the commercial, and the can opener is supposed to come down on Jackie's hand so he can do his pain bit," Miss Meadows recalled. "Then he starts running around the room, and he hits a prop wall that isn't fixed securely. He knocks down the wall and lands on his face. Then, Artie goes to help him and Artie lands on his face. That scene, just as it happened, was left in and is still being shown today."

Neither woman has anything nice to say about the most recent biography of Mr. Gleason, "The Great One," by William Henry 3d (Doubleday), which portrays Mr. Gleason as a moody, booze-soaked egomaniac who bullied his writers and abandoned his family.

While both contend that the book presents a flawed portrait, Miss Randolph concedes that Mr. Gleason sometimes mistreated his staff. "He was very mean to the writers," she said. "He kept them isolated. He didn't get to know them."

Miss Meadows, to this day Mr. Gleason's greatest defender, attacked Mr. Henry's emphasis on Mr. Gleason's drinking. "Jackie did not drink on the show, ever, not one sip," she asserted.

About the book's accusation that Mr. Gleason tried to thwart the richly talented Art Carney, both women strongly disagree.

"Never, never," Miss Meadows said. "There were times when he would say in rehearsal: 'Give that line to Artie. It would be funnier coming from him." Added Miss Randolph: "Art didn't want to be top banana. He was always so low-key and shy."

When Mr. Gleason was once asked why "The Honeymooners" was so popular nearly 40 years later, he replied, "It's funny." Miss Meadows concurred. "We had such good writing," she said. "The money people running the industry today don't know good scripts."

Moreover, "The Honeymooners" was a mini-morality play, in which the characters always learned lessons about things like greed, vanity, trust, love and the importance of sharing.

"You know what I thought was interesting about 'The Honeymooners'?" Miss Meadows said. "There we were, blowing whatever money we had from his driving a bus. The Nortons lived a little better than we did because they put everything on credit. We were both lower middle-class people, but we had class. 'Roseanne,' even though it's funny, do you think they have class?"

Both women think "Murphy Brown," "Seinfeld" and "Mad About You" are also funny.

After lunch, Miss Meadows and Miss Randolph did what their fictional counterparts never would have done: they shopped on Madison Avenue, taking time out to explore the new Barneys. They were spotted by an adoring sales clerk at the Estee Lauder counter and soon attracted a large crowd of autograph seekers -- so many that Estee Lauder herself came to see what the fuss was all about. "You see," Miss Randolph declared. "It can happen anywhere."

Copywritten NY TIMES

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theracoonlodge · 8 years ago

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Piano Man Paul Carney’s Life Doesn’t Imitate Art’s

Piano Man Paul Carney's Life Doesn't Imitate Art's

BY LYNNE BARANSKI

POSTED ON JANUARY 23, 1978 AT 12:00PM EDT

What is Art Carney, Hollywood’s most golden oldie and a recovered alcoholic, doing in Malone’s West, a collegiate honky-tonk in Westville, Conn.? Catching son Paul’s own late show: good-time piano boogie that’s got the house packed, down jacket to down jacket. “I have to admit it’s a field that is a little foreign to me,” beams his 59-year-old pop. “The first time I saw him, he just knocked me out.”

Paul, 25, knows that a famous name “can help you, or it can kill you.” Aside from an original tune called Chrome Dome that may be a humorous hymn to a certain balding ex-Honeymooner, nothing in his high-volume set of rock’n’roll standards hints at his heritage. For a scion of a family (granddad and several uncles too) with drinking problems, working in a saloon is a bit of a wrench. “When people with beer and smoke on their breath are around,” says Paul, “you almost have to drink in self-defense.” He tries to limit himself to beer, and heeds Father (who’s been off the sauce for four years) on fielding drunks: “If you get down to their level, you’re lost.”

Young Carney’s mother, Jean, who was divorced from Art in 1965 and subsequently from her second husband, lives nearby, which has created a perfect Parent Trap setup. Art, now in the process of getting a divorce from his second wife, has been spotted squiring Mother to an occasional gig of their youngest child of three. Paul says of his parents, “I was encouraged in everything I did,” even to dropping out of high school as a junior. Paul started playing coffeehouses in New York and cut an LP at 18 that sold only 10,000 copies (“I’m glad it wasn’t a hit because I lacked experience and maturity”). Three years ago he married his teenage sweetheart and they relocated to Old Lyme, Conn. “In New York, club owners feel they’re doing you a favor,” Paul says, “but here I’m in demand.” He’s forming the Paul Carney Band, and will test one of the things he’s always admired about his father: “It must be tough to be a star and not be a swelled head.”

Copywritten PEOPLE magazine

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theracoonlodge · 8 years ago

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BLU-RAY review

Check out my review of the 2014 Honeymooners Blu-Ray Edition (Classic 39 + extras).

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theracoonlodge · 9 years ago

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Honeymooners Auction - 1999

‘HONEYMOONERS’ FOR SALE (INCLUDING KITCHEN SINK) OR HOW ABOUT RALPH’S BUS DRIVER UNIFORM?

By Austin Smith

June 7, 1999 | 4:00am

WARNING to “Honeymooners” fanatics who may be thinking about bidding on furniture from the show’s kitchen set when they come up for auction this weekend: The items are NOT the originals.

The furniture was part of the “Honeymooners” set when Jackie Gleason revived the adventures of the Kramdens and Nortons for the Miami Beach-based “Jackie Gleason Show” in the 1960s.

They’re part of a group of “Honeymooners”-related objects scheduled to be auctioned at Sotheby’s this Saturday at 2 p.m. The auction house hopes to get $10,000-15,000 for the kitchen set. The other items include a bus driver’s uniform worn by Gleason in the 1950s ($10,000-15,000), aprons worn by Alice Kramden and Trixie Norton ($600-800), and various figurines and sketches of “Honeymooners” characters.

The kitchen set – including a table and chairs, ancient stove and icebox, and a kitchen sink – are certainly similar to the ones seen for decades on “Honeymooners” reruns. But the original furniture seen on the syndicated “Honeymooners” shows that first aired on CBS in 1955 and ’56 (and lovingly referred to by fans as “the classic 39”) has been missing for years, according to “Honeymooners” expert Bob Columbe.

He’s one of the owners of the “Honeymooners” objects being put up for sale at Sotheby’s. He and co-owner Peter Crescenti are two Long Island residents best known for creating the Royal Association for the Longevity and Preservation of Honeymooners (RALPH), which campaigned for the continuation of “The Honeymooners” on TV back in the 1980s.

RALPH was disbanded nearly 10 years ago because, Columbe explains, the group’s goals were largely achieved since “The Honeymooners” shows are widely available today on videocassette and laserdisc. In addition, Nick at Nite’s TV Land will add the show to its lineup next January. And Ch.11 still holds the rerun rights under a contract that doesn’t expire until Dec.31, 2002 (although “The Honeymooners” hasn’t been seen regularly on Ch.11 since December 1997).

For the last 10 years, “The Honeymooners” kitchen set has been on display at the Brooklyn Historical Society – important objects since “The Honeymooners” took place in Bensonhurst and Gleason grew up in Bushwick. But with the Society closing its doors later this month for a two-year renovation, Columbe and Crescenti felt the time was right to auction off the furniture and other “Honeymooners” holdings.

“The Honeymooners” set won’t be part of the museum’s permanent collection when it reopens in spring 2001.

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