Film & TV / Theatre & dance
Joyce Randolph
1924–2024 · stage and television actress
Detroit-born Trixie Norton of The Honeymooners, a Finnish-American store clerk who joined a touring play in Detroit and became the show's last surviving star.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
New York City, New York
aged 99- Birth name
- Joyce Sirola
- Also known as
- Garbo of Detroit · Trixie Norton
- Detroit years
- 1924–1943
- Field
- Film & TV, Theatre & dance
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Joyce Randolph was born Joyce Sirola in Detroit on October 21, 1924, to a family of Finnish descent. As a teenager she acted with the Wayne University Workshop, the theater program of what is now Wayne State University, and after high school she took a job in retail sales at the Saks Fifth Avenue store in Detroit. Her break came when a touring company of Stage Door played the city: she auditioned, won a part and stayed with the tour, then moved to New York in 1943. Columnists there dubbed her 'the Garbo of Detroit', a label she found baffling: she said she had been a nobody in Detroit, though like Garbo she was Scandinavian. In 1951 Jackie Gleason saw her in a commercial and cast her as Trixie Norton, wife of Art Carney's Ed Norton, in the sketches that became The Honeymooners. She died in Manhattan in 2024 at 99, the last surviving member of the classic cast.
Highlights
- Trixie Norton on The Honeymooners and The Jackie Gleason Show
- Last surviving cast member of the classic Honeymooners
- Acted as a teenager with the Wayne University Workshop in Detroit
- Joined a touring production of Stage Door in Detroit
- Nicknamed 'the Garbo of Detroit' by New York columnists
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Performed here · late 1930s–early 1940s
Wayne State University
As a teenager Randolph acted in productions of the university's theater workshop.
Worked here · early 1940s
Saks Fifth Avenue (Detroit store)
Closed
She worked in retail sales here after high school, before a touring play took her to New York.