Randolph, John, 1915-2004

John Randolph the actor, as he would always introduce himself, was born Emanuel Hirsch Cohen in the Bronx, New York on June 1, 1915. He was renamed Mortimer Lippman at the age of 12 when his mother remarried, and finally emerged as John Randolph when he began his acting career in the 1930s with the Federal Theatre Project. His first Broadway role came courtesy of the Project when he appeared in Coriolanus in 1938. He received his formal theatre training from the Dramatic Workshop of the New School for Social Research under the director of Erwin Piscator. He appeared on Broadway four more times before going on the road with a production of Native Son starring Canada Lee in 1941. It was during this tour that Randolph had a number of opportunities to demonstrate his strong sensitivity to civil rights.

1941 proved to be a very important year in Randolph’s life. On June 22, 1941, as Germany marched into Russia, John came together with a young actress from Greenville, South Carolina: Sarah Cunningham who shared with him not only a passion for acting but for activism as well. It was their acting careers that kept them apart for most of the rest of 1941. On a visit during the run of Native Son, the pair decided to marry. They wed at high noon on Wednesday, January 6, 1942, prior to John’s matinee. Hours later Sarah was on her way to back to New York. In April John (as Mortimer Lippman again) was drafted into the Army Air Corps where he served for the next four years.

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