Mb>About Art Carney Art Carney, born Arthur William Matthew, November, 1918 in Mount Vernon, New York, the youngest son of Helen (née Farrell) and Edward Michael Carney, who was a newspaper man and publicist.[1][2][3] His family was Irish American and Catholic.[4] He attended A B Davis High School.[5] Carney was drafted as an infantryman during World War II. During the Battle of Normandy, he was wounded in the leg by shrapnel and walked with a limp for the rest of his life.
Carney was married three times to two women: Jean Myers, from 1940 to 1965, and again from 1980 to his death; and Barbara Isaac from December 21, 1966 to 1977. He had three children with Jean Myers.
Art Carney was a comic singer with the Horace Heidt orchestra, which was heard often on radio during the 1930s, notably on the hugely successful Pot o' Gold, the first big-money giveaway show in 1939-41. Carney's film career began with an uncredited role in Pot o' Gold (1941), the radio program's spin-off feature film, playing a member of Heidt's band. Carney, a gifted mimic, worked steadily in radio during the 1940s, playing character roles and impersonating celebrities. In 1941 he was the house comic on the big band remote series, Matinee at Meadowbrook. One of his radio roles during the 1940s was the fish Red Lantern on Land of the Lost. In 1943 he played Billy Oldham on Joe and Ethel Turp, based on Damon Runyon stories. He appeared on The Henry Morgan Show in 1946-47. He impersonated FDR on The March of Time and Dwight D. Eisenhower on Living 1948. In 1950-51 he played Montague's father on The Magnificent Montague. He was a supporting player on Casey, Crime Photographer and Gang Busters.
On the radio and television shows of the The Morey Amsterdam Show from 1948 to 1950, Carney's character Charlie the doorman became known for his catchphrase, "Ya know what I mean?", a phrase so deeply embedded that it continues to have widespread usage more than half a century later.
In 1950 Jackie Gleason was starring in a New York-based comedy-variety series, Cavalcade of Stars, and played many different characters. One regular character was Charlie Bratten, a lunchroom loudmouth who insisted on spoiling a neighboring patron's meal. Carney, established in New York as a reliable actor, played Bratten's mild-mannered victim, Clem Finch. Gleason and Carney developed a good working chemistry, and Gleason recruited Carney to appear in other sketches, including the domestic-comedy skits featuring The Honeymooners. Carney gained lifelong fame for his portrayal of upstairs neighbor and sewer worker Ed Norton, opposite Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden. The success of these skits resulted in the famous filmed situation comedy The Honeymooners and the Honeymooners revivals that followed.
Beyond The Honeymooners (can we ever stop laughing at Hello, Ball?), Art Carney served as Gleason's sidekick and troupe member during many of the Gleason's years on television, which included several CBS runs of the Gleason variety show and some Honeymooners specials on ABC. Gleason picked Carney to play Norton because he realized that Carney was so funny that Gleason would have to work twice as hard to get laughs. This "competition" between the two was likely a factor in the program's consistently high level of humor. In fact, at one point during the 1950s, Carney was getting more media attention than Gleason, prompting Gleason to scale back Carney's participation for a few episodes. Popular demand restored Carney to prominence in the Gleason shows.
Art Carney's good-naturedly goofy portrayal of Norton continues to influence pop culture, particularly by inspiring the Hanna-Barbera characters, Yogi Bear and Barney Rubble.
Art Carney was nominated for seven Emmy Awards and won six. Would you believe, Aty was also in an episode of The Twilight Zone "Night of the Meek".

In 1974 he won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Harry Coombes, an elderly man going on the road with his pet cat, in Harry and Tonto. He also appeared in such films as W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings, The Late Show (as an aging detective), House Calls, Movie Movie and Going in Style (as a bored senior citizen who joins in bank robberies). Later movies included The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984) and the thriller Firestarter.
In 1981, he portrayed Harry Truman, an 84-year-old lodge owner in the half-fictional/half-real account of events leading to the eruption of Mount St. Helens, in the movie titled St. Helens. Although he retired in the late 1980s, he returned in 1993 to make a small cameo in the Arnold Schwarzenegger film, Last Action Hero.
Art Carney's work on stage included the portrayal on Broadway in 1965-67 of Felix Unger in The Odd Couple (opposite Walter Matthau as Oscar). In 1969 he was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance in Brian Friel's Lovers.
Carney died after a long illness at a rest home near his home in Westbrook, Connecticut, five days after his 85th birthday; he was survived by his widow and children. Carney is interred at Riverside Cemetery in Old Saybrook, Middlesex County, Connecticut.
Carney was succeeded in show business by his grandson, Devin Richardson Carney, star of Old Saybrook theatre productions, including a stint as Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music and a commanding performance as Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls. Today, Devin Richardson Carney limits his theatrical work to performing in the Ardmore Road Rock Band in West Hartford, Connecticut, where he plays backup guitar for Nick Bombace.

About Audrey Meadows Born in WuChang, China, to Episcopal missionary parents, Audrey spoke nothing but Chinese until she was five, when her parents returned home to America. Although Audrey had made her debut as a coloratura soprano in Carnegie Hall when she was sixteen, she also sang with the Civic Light Opera companies in Detroit, Louisville and Chicago in standards like "Roberta," "Anything Goes," "Good News," and "No, Non Nanette," as well as a starring Broadway role with Phil Silvers in "Top Banana" and with Bob And Ray's famous television show.
Audrey reached phenomenal success with "The Honeymooners," and will be forever remembered as "Alice." Next, a series of guest shots on major TV shows, and six specials with Sid Caesar, showed her versatility as a singer, dancer and comedienne. Audrey Meadows, at the height of her comedy success, showed her unique versatility in developing a series of straight dramatic roles in "Play of the Week" and"Alfred Hitchcock Presents," which won an award, "Checkmate," "Wagon Train" and more. she made her motion picture debut with Cary Grant and Doris Day in "That Touch of Mink." She then followed that success with "Take Her She's Mine," with Jimmy Stewart, and "Rosie" with Rosalind Russell and Sandra Dee. All of her film work was interspersed with television guest star roles on national shows. Few fans realize that the familiar throaty rasp of Alice Kramden belongs to the Audrey Meadows who was more than capable of holding her own with many of the nation's top ranking comics. Television guest shots with Sid Caesar, Red Skelton, Jack Benny, Lucille Ball, Ted Knight, Johnathan Winters and Carol Burnett proved that with her own unique and unforgettable style of comic acting. She became a sought-after dramatic actress as well, and appeared in every major television playhouse production, including the prize-winning Alfred Hitchcock drama, and starred in a two-hour production of Elmer Rice's, "the Grand Tour." Later, she appeared in "Specials" of "The Honeymooners," Dean Martin "Roasts," "The Love Boat," "Hotel" and five years opposite Ted Knight in "Too Close for Comfort," a recurring role on Universal's "Uncle Buck," as well as "Murder, She Wrote," "Davis Rules," "Burke's Law," "Sisters," and "Dave's World."
On August 24, 1961, Audrey was married in Honolulu to Robert F. Six, President of Continental Airlines. She served as Director of the First National Bank of Denver for eleven years and was an Advisory Director of Continental Airlines. In October 1994, she published her memiors, entitled, Love, Alice. Love, Alice is referred to many places on this official Web site, particularly in "Fun Stuff," where Audrey recounts in her own words some of her most colorful memories associated with "The Honeymooners."
Audrey Meadows died February 3, 1996 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles at the age of 69.

About Joyce Randolph Joyce Randolph, born Joyce Sirola in Detroit, Michigan on October 21, 1925, is an actress, best known for playing Trixie Norton on The Honeymooners’s television series of the 1950s.
Joyce Randolph married Richard Charles in a Baptist church on Long Island, New York, on October 2, 1955, and they remain married. They had one child.
She was known as "The Garbo of Detroit," probably because of her Garbo like "mug.".
Joyce Randolph is the last surviving member of the famous Honeymooners quartet, living (as last we at OTV heard) in Southern New Jersey.

Trivia: Joyce Randolph was not the very first "Trixie Norton"; Elaine Stritch appeared as a burlesque "Trixie" in approximately 1951 in Cavalcade of Stars, where the premise for The Honeymooners first took root.

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THAN THE NO-CAL PIZZA OR CHEF OF THE FUTURE KITCHEN UTENSIL!

According to Look Magazine, Jackie had two favorite Honeymooner's episodes. Of course, one was that hilarious episode where that famous Norton line, "Hello, Ball" was spoken, the skit where Jackie had to learn golf in a week in order to impress his boss (the predicament caused by Ed's intervention at the Gotham Bus Company). Ed spoke the line while demonstrating to Ralph what was meant by the Golf instruction to "step up and address the ball." Who can forget Alice's glare when she "gets a load" of her husband's loud plaid golfing outfit.

Jackie's second pick may surprise you. It was that little spoken of Honeymooners episode in which the Kramden's hire a maid. The overtowering, overbearing housekeeper responded to Ed's dinner bell ringing and request for "one lump" (of sugar) in his coffee by retorting, "You keep on ringing that bell and you'll get one lump, alright."

In the article, Jackie praised his co-stars. He said then, as he would say thirty years later on 60 Minutes (about why the show plays on and on as the classic) "When it's funny, it's funny." Amen.

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