[Marxism] John Randolph

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY Times, February 28, 2004
John Randolph, 88, an Actor on Broadway and in the Movies, Dies
By BEN SISARIO

John Randolph, a Tony Award-winning actor who was a veteran on Broadway and 
in the movies, died on Tuesday at his home in Hollywood, his daughter, 
Martha Randolph, said. He was 88.

Mr. Randolph, whose career stretched from Broadway in the 1930's to recent 
Hollywood films like "You've Got Mail" and "A Price Above Rubies" (both 
from 1998), won the Tony in 1987 for best featured actor in Neil Simon's 
"Broadway Bound."

Frequently cast as an authority figure, Mr. Randolph played the police 
chief in "Serpico," Jack Nicholson's father in "Prizzi's Honor" and Tom 
Hanks's grandfather in "You've Got Mail." He also occasionally played 
Roseanne Barr's father in the television show "Roseanne."

In "Broadway Bound," the third play in Mr. Simon's autobiographical trilogy 
that also included "Brighton Beach Memoirs" and "Biloxi Blues," Mr. 
Randolph played the frail yet cantankerous and argumentative grandfather. 
In a review in The New York Times, Frank Rich wrote that Mr. Randolph 
played the character ? an "unreconstructed, if sometimes hypocritical 
Trotskyite" ? with "a matchless mixture of buried affection and shrewd 
comic timing."

Born Emanuel Hirsch Cohen in the Bronx to immigrants from Romania, Mr. 
Randolph attended City College and studied in the Federal Theater Project 
and with Stella Adler. He changed his name to John Randolph in 1940.

He made his Broadway debut in "Coriolanus" in 1938 and was a regular 
presence there through the 1960's. His many credits on Broadway include 
"Command Decision" in 1947, William Inge's "Come Back, Little Sheba" in 
1950 and "Seagulls Over Sorrento" in 1952. He was in the original Broadway 
productions of "The Sound of Music" and "Paint Your Wagon."

He married the actress Sarah Cunningham in Chicago in 1945, during the 
break between the matinee and evening performances of "Native Son," which 
was directed and produced by Orson Welles. Ms. Cunningham died in 1986.

Mr. Randolph and his wife were called before the House Un-American 
Activities Committee in 1955 but refused to testify. He remained 
blacklisted from film and television work until the mid-1960's, returning 
to work in the science-fiction film "Seconds" in 1966. That film, directed 
by John Frankenheimer, starred Rock Hudson and also featured Will Greer and 
Jeff Corey, who had also been blacklisted.

In addition to his daughter, of Honolulu, Mr. Randolph is survived by a 
son, Hal, of Los Angeles; a brother, Jerry Lippman, of Edgewater, N.J.; and 
a granddaughter.



Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org 


_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism