The Other Side Of the Coin

My last post bewailed the fate of a group of unemployed animated actors. Quick as a flash a correspondent mailed back asking the rhetorical question "what about B. Lowe Randle?" Good point. Randle endured a long spell in the wilderness too. But he fought back and won.

Jim Randle was born in Boston in 1927 the son of a doctor and a teacher. In 1944 his pacifist parents were jailed for expressing their opposition to the Second World War. To save the family name Jim enlisted himself. His parents never forgave him and declared he would not be welcome at home if he survived the war. In 1945 the fighting was over and he accepted the offer to stay at the home of an army pal until he sorted himself out. His pal was a small time Hollywood actor and Jim entered the same profession to help pay the bills.

Randle was born to wear a short sleeved shirt. His outdoor action man looks and intense introversion gave him a screen presence of brooding menace. Soon he was getting regular work in low budget fillers such as Curse of the Were-Mexican and Biff Douglas Cleans Up Prince Edward Island. He earned a comfortable living as a casual heavy and became known as "Below The Title Randle" as he was always available for small supporting roles. When another James Randall arrived in Hollywood and refused to change his name the ever-helpful Jim adopted his nickname instead and B. Lowe Randle was born.

All went well until Randle got too good. His charisma was so strong that he unbalanced the film by appearing in a small part. Stars refused to work with him and directors became frightened of hiring him. It was stardom or nothing for B. Lowe. But he was never once offered the major part his talent demanded. There was not a whiff of scandal attached to his name as he was a mild-mannered man who played the flute and grew potatoes offscreen. But people assumed there must be a good reason he was being ostracised. In 1952 he was in regular employment. By 1954 his once richly promising career was to all intents and purposes over.

One day his agent revealed to him the sad truth. B. Lowe would never be taken seriously as a major star because he had never married Elizabeth Taylor. His agent suggested having a sex change and marrying Mickey Rooney as there were more openings there. For once Randle allowed himself the luxury of disagreeing. He left Hollywood altogether and set up a car dealership. When he had lost all his money through lack of business sense he washed up in Hollywood again. They wanted someone who sounded like him to provide voices for cartoon characters like his. After several auditions he got his first part and adjusted himself to a career the other side of the camera. One part led to another and soon his uncredited voice became as ubiquitous as his face had once been.

One day the animators of a short feature Randle had voiced went on strike. They declared that studio bosses had been altering their animations without either telling them or paying those responsible for the alterations. The studio bosses flatly denied any such thing. It soon emerged that Randle had been sneaking into the studios at night and altering his characters. He had developed such an empathy with them that he could see small imperfections in their appearance frame by frame. The bosses preferred the new versions and on careful reflection so did the animators. Randle was offered an animation job. He went further than that. He permanently drew himself and was granted the exclusive right to alter himself. Hence the multiplicity of humanoid animations where once there were only animal figures. Hence the sudden concerns over the violence of cartoons as an animated actor people remembered as a human was now involved.

Randle became a bigger star as an animation than he could ever have been as a human actor. He even married both Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney. He lived in the mansion right at the top of Hollywood Boulevard and retired gracefully when his colours slowly became incompatible with new camera systems. He is of course still alive and provides the potatoes for Paul Newman's sauces. Randle remains the model for all actors wishing to become animations. Few however could hope to bring the depth of character and sheer two dimensionality to a role that B. Lowe so amply provided for so many years. Few indeed could hope to do with an army of pens what B. Lowe could do with one single millimetre alteration of his stomach line or perspiration beads.

B. Lowe Randle demonstrates there is hope for us all. All it requires is to make little sacrifices such as eating, breathing and having any personal dignity. Maybe there is justice in the world after all. Maybe there is also a world beyond human judgment where truth no longer matters. That after all is the world B. Lowe Randle exploited so successfully. Just think of the benefits we would all enjoy if all the earnest human actors of today would jump off their fear induced gravy trains and follow his example.