Isabel Randolph

Isabel Randolph, born Isabelle Elfreda Mair on December 4, 1889, in Chicago, Illinois, was an American character actress whose career spanned theater, radio, film, and television across several decades. She died on January 11, 1973, in Burbank, California, following a lengthy illness, survived by her two daughters. Her stage name was drawn from Chicago's Randolph Street.

Randolph began her theatrical career in regional theater throughout the American Midwest during the pre-World War I era. By 1917 she had become leading lady at the Princess Theater in Des Moines, Iowa, a position she held into 1918. In 1931 she was acting at the Loyola Community Theater in Chicago. Her Broadway career ran from 1926 to 1927 and included two productions: she portrayed Mrs. Pembrook in If I Was Rich in 1926 and Henrietta Scott in Ink in 1927. She was married to John Charles Ryan from August 22, 1917, until his death in May 1934, and the couple had two daughters together.

Her radio career began in the mid-1930s and brought her national recognition. On January 13, 1936, she joined the cast of Fibber McGee and Molly, a comedy series that ran from 1935 to 1959, taking on various roles before settling into the recurring character of Mrs. Abigail Uppington, a pompous society matron whom Fibber McGee addressed as "Uppy." Randolph remained with the series for seven years, departing before its eighth season in the fall of 1943. Simultaneously, beginning January 20, 1936, she starred as the wife in NBC's soap opera Dan Harding's Wife, which ran through February 10, 1939. She also appeared in the radio serials One Man's Family and The Story of Mary Marlin.

Randolph entered films in 1940, having already built a reputation for playing middle-aged grand dame characters on stage and radio. She reprised her Mrs. Uppington character in two RKO films derived from the Fibber McGee and Molly radio series: Look Who's Laughing in 1941 and Here We Go Again in 1942. In 1943 she co-starred in the Republic musical O, My Darling Clementine, and in 1945 she was prominently featured in Hoosier Holiday, also from Republic Pictures. Her film work included multiple productions alongside Lucille Ball, and her output over the period from 1939 to 1959 totaled more than seventy films. In at least one Republic Studios western of the early 1950s, Thundering Caravans, part of the Sheriff Rocky Lane series, she was cast against type as a villainous criminal mastermind.

Randolph's television career extended from 1951 to 1966 and was concentrated largely in comedy. Her first television role was as a protagonist in the 1951 version of Dick Tracy, and that same year she was a cast member of The Jerry Colonna Show on ABC. In 1952 she appeared regularly on The Abbott and Costello Show. She played the recurring neighbor character Mrs. Boone in the CBS sitcom Meet Millie beginning in 1954, and during the final 1955–1956 season of Our Miss Brooks she appeared as private-school proprietress Mrs. Nestor. From 1957 to 1962 she was a regular comedic presence on The Red Skelton Show. Her later television credits included The Tom Ewell Show episode "Storm Over Shangri-La" in 1961, two episodes of The Andy Griffith Show in 1961 and 1963, and the recurring role of Clara Petrie, the mother of Rob Petrie, on The Dick Van Dyke Show in 1966. Her final television appearance came later that same year, when she played Madam Rosa Bruening in the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Misguided Model."