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Authenticity is Everything
HONEYMOONERS THE FIRST TRIXIE NORTON
With the recent death of Joyce Randolph I revisited my own Honeymooner's collection. I had Jackie Gleason, Art Carney, Audrey Meadows, Joyce Randolph, Pert Kelton, Sue Ann Langdon, Shelia MacRae and Jane Kean. I knew I was missing two others. I had all the Alice's but I need two more Trixies. Patricia Wilson had played Trixie Norton on a 1962 Jackie Gleason Show Honeymooners skit "The Kramdens get a TV set." I do not have her but do have Alice as played by Sue Ane Langdon. I was also missing the lady that played the very first Trixie Norton.
Jackie Gleason hosted a show on the Dumont network entitled The Dumont Cavalcade Of Stars. That show was the birth of the Honeymooners in a skit called "Bread" that aired live on October 5, 1951, with Pert Kelton playing Alice. There were no Nortons in that show, however Art Carney appeared as a policeman.
The first time the Nortons appear was in the sketch "The Television,” that aired on November 12, 1951. Art Carney plays Ed Norton and theater star Elaine Stritch plays Trixie Norton. She appeared only in that one episode since Elaine's Trixie was a bit too rough around the edges and Gleason decided a softer version was needed. Her replacement was the wonderful Joyce Randolph.
Elaine Stritch (1925-2014) was a stage actress throughout her career. She did television both American and British. Her film roles included Mavis LaBreche in the Jack Lemon and Walter Matthau movie Out to Sea (1997). In England she had her own television comedy Two's Company 1975-1979. This is a page from a lined notebook belonging to Harvey Kuflik.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Scott Paul on
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Such a tragic mutilation of a historic early piece of a Jackie Gleason document. Documents relating to him are very scarce. As I have said before if they absolutely did not want the inscription just to have it easily matted and framed, they would end up with the same thing without cutting.
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ELAINE STRITCH as she appeared in her later years.
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Permalink Reply by Eric Keith Longo on
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I saw in A Delicate Balance :-)
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She was a remarkable performer and could do everything.
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She was remarkable live. Unbelievable. In Balance. Like a wet powderkeg. I also saw her in...A Little Night Music, in which she forgot all her lines. :-( She should not have bee onstage at that point I am sorry to say. I think that was when I asked her about Trixie.
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I would have loved to see her Martha in Woolf?
"IT may be 2 a.m. when George and Martha stumble home at the beginning of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” but the evening is just getting started. Fueled by a bathtub’s worth of alcohol and culminating in the surfacing of some very ugly truths, Edward Albee’s faculty-mixer-as-blood-sport drama riveted audiences in October 1962 and vaulted the 34-year-old playwright from Off Broadway darling to the cover of Newsweek magazine.
The rough language and scorched-earth gamesmanship that George and Martha engage in with two younger counterparts, Nick and Honey, was both exhilarating and unsettling; the Pulitzer Prize judges selected it for the drama award that year, only to see the Pulitzer board reject the recommendation. (It was rough on the actors, too, and a second cast was quickly added to play the matinees, one that would include Elaine Stritch as Martha.) Mr. Albee would win the Tony Award, as would the director, Alan Schneider, and the play’s two stars, Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill."
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You were very fortunate to have seen her perform live and to meet her. That would have been something to see in fact I think I have a index card signed by Uta Hagen and a Playbill signed by Arthur Hill and Ben Piazzia. May just be a cover will have to look for them.
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I've got this - pardon the small scans. Postcard is 1963, still is 1962:
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Those are great shots. I am glad the early Honeymooner sketches still exist. I am not sure if I ever saw the 1962 Jackie Gleason Show (American Scene Magazine) one with Sue Ann Langdon and Patricia Wilson.
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Thanks Scott. I am glad they all exist - The Honeymooners is a time-tested pillar of consistency and reliable simple fun in these crazy times.
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SUE ANE LANGDON (1936- ) the last surviving Alice Kramden having played the role in 1962 in a Honeymooners skit on The Jackie Gleason Show. She appeared on a LIFE magazine cover with Gleason. She only appeared in the one Honeymooners sketch in 1962.
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Life Magazine Cover with Jackie Gleason and Sue Ane Langdon.
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