Amanda Randolph

Amanda Randolph (September 2, 1896 – August 24, 1967) was an American actress, singer, and pianist whose career spanned stage, film, radio, and television across more than four decades. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, to a Methodist minister and a teacher, she grew up in a household that relocated frequently. Her younger sister, Lillian, also pursued a career in acting. By age 14, Randolph was earning income playing piano and organ in Cleveland, Ohio.

Around 1919, Randolph settled in Cincinnati, where she worked as a musician at Ohio's Lyric Theatre and recorded piano rolls for the Vocalstyle company under the name Mandy Randolph. These recordings included hot jazz and blues material, among them W. C. Handy's "The Yellow Dog Blues" (Vocalstyle roll #11562, 1919). She also composed music for the company, serving as both performer and composer on "I'm Gonna Jazz My Way Right Straight Thru Paradise" and as co-author, with H. C. Washington, of "Cryin' Blues." Her Vocalstyle recordings are the only known piano rolls made by a Black female pianist. Randolph additionally cut audio recordings accompanied by Sammie Lewis, producing six duets later compiled on the 1996 Document Records album Blues & Jazz Obscurities (1923–1931). Among those recordings were "Cootie Crawl" (Gennett G11425), made on April 30, 1923, and "I Got Another Lovin' Daddy."

Randolph's Broadway career ran from 1924 to 1942. In 1924 she was invited to join the Sissle and Blake musical Shuffle Along in New York, and in 1925 she appeared in another Sissle and Blake production, The Chocolate Dandies. She subsequently worked in musicals at New York's Alhambra Theater through 1930, after which she spent a year performing in Europe and England. She also worked the vaudeville and burlesque circuits as both comedian and singer. In 1932 she took a four-year hiatus from performing, during which she married and helped operate a New York restaurant called The Clam House, a gathering place for entertainment industry figures. Upon returning to the stage, she played piano at a Greenwich Village club called The Black Cat. Her later Broadway credits included The Male Animal and Harlem Cavalcade, as well as The Willow and I.

In October 1936, Randolph recorded six sides for Bluebird Records in New York City, billed as Amanda Randolph and her Orchestra, with Randolph handling vocals. The recordings included "Please Don't Talk About My Man" (Bluebird 6615), "Doin' The Suzie-Q" (Bluebird 6615), "Honey, Please Don't Turn Your Back On Me" (Bluebird 6616), "For Sentimental Reasons" (Bluebird 6617), "He May Be Your Man But" (Bluebird 6617), and "I've Got Something In My Eye" (Bluebird 6619-B). Bluebird was a label created in 1932 and owned by RCA Victor Records.

Her film career began in 1936 with Black Network, and she went on to appear in several Oscar Micheaux productions, including Swing, Lying Lips, and The Notorious Elinor Lee. Contacts made at The Clam House helped her secure a CBS radio audition, leading to work on programs including Young Dr. Malone, Romance of Helen Trent, Big Sister, Abie's Irish Rose, Kitty Foyle, and Miss Hattie with Ethel Barrymore, on which she played the role of Venus. She also appeared on Rudy Vallée's radio show and on Grand Central Station.

Randolph became a significant figure in early American television. In 1944 she appeared over CBS-TV alongside the trio The Three Barons. She then became the first African-American performer to star in a regularly scheduled network television show, appearing in DuMont's The Laytons, which aired for two months in 1948. During the 1948–49 television season, she starred in her own daytime musical program for DuMont, Amanda, which aired Monday through Friday from noon to 12:15 p.m. ET, making her the first African-American woman with her own daytime television show. She also provided the voice of Petunia in Famous Studios' Little Audrey cartoon series, appearing in Butterscotch and Soda (1948), The Lost Dream (1949), Song of the Birds (1949), Hold the Lion, Please (1951), and Audrey the Rainmaker (1951).

Randolph relocated to California in 1949, when she was cast in Sidney Poitier's No Way Out. She became a regular on The Amos 'n' Andy Show from 1951 to 1953, playing Sapphire's mother, Ramona Smith — a role she also performed on the show's radio version from 1951 to 1954. She had previously appeared on the show alongside Tim Moore, with whom she had shared the bill years earlier in Lucky Sambo as one of the Three Dixie Songbirds. From 1953 to 1954, Randolph starred as the titular character in The Beulah Show, assuming the role from her sister Lillian. In 1955 she opened a Los Angeles restaurant called Mama's Place. She performed the role of folk heroine Annie Christmas in The Legend of Annie Christmas for CBS Radio Workshop in 1956. Randolph also held a recurring role as Louise the Maid on CBS's The Danny Thomas Show and guest-starred on NBC's The Barbara Stanwyck Show. Her final appearance on The Danny Thomas Show came in a 1967 reunion program that aired shortly after her death.

Randolph married Harry Hansberry sometime after 1940. The couple had two children before separating, and they remained estranged until Hansberry died of a heart attack in 1961. Newspapers frequently confused Amanda with her sister Lillian, running stories about one with photographs of the other. At age 70, Randolph was slightly short of the requirements for a Screen Actors Guild pension, and a role was written for her specifically to establish her eligibility. She died of a stroke in Duarte, California, on August 24, 1967, at age 70, survived by a son, Joseph, and a daughter, Evelyn. She is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills beside her sister Lillian.