Sue Randall

Marion Burnside Randall, who acted under the name Sue Randall (October 8, 1935 – October 26, 1984), was an American actress best known for her role as the kindly Miss Landers, Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver's elementary school teacher in the CBS and ABC sitcom Leave It to Beaver.

Philadelphia-born Randall's debut on the small screen came in the 1955 episode "Golden Victory" of the series Star Tonight. She later appeared as one of the employees in the Reference Department in the 1957 film Desk Set with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. She was cast in the ABC western series The Rebel as Elaine, the daughter of a man sentenced to hang, but Nick Adams, the star, saves him. This second episode entitled "Judgment Day" aired October 11, 1959.

Her Leave It to Beaver years spanned from 1958 to 1963, when she was in her twenties. She appeared in twenty-nine episodes^[1] after replacing Diane Brewster, who played "Miss Canfield" both during the first season and in the 1980s television movies based on the series.

Randall's primary roles were on television in guest-starring roles. She was cast as Kathy O'Hara, an aspiring concert pianist, in the episode "The Mysterious Stranger" (February 17, 1959) of the ABC/Warner Brothers western series Sugarfoot, with Will Hutchins in the title role.

Randall appeared in CBS's The Twilight Zone, Have Gun – Will Travel, Gunsmoke, The Aquanauts, Pete and Gladys, and Hennesey, NBC's Bonanza and The Man and the Challenge, and ABC's The Real McCoys, The Rebel, The Dakotas, 77 Sunset Strip, The Fugitive, and The Rifleman. In addition, she made three guest appearances on Sea Hunt with Lloyd Bridges in 1961. That same year she also guest starred as Ellen, with Adolphe Menjou as Fitch and Orson Bean as her husband John Monroe, in the episode "The Secret Life of James Thurber", based on the works of the American humorist James Thurber, in the CBS anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson. She made two guest appearances as well on Perry Mason, both times as the defendant: Betty Wilkins in the 1960 episode, "The Case of the Ill-Fated Faker," and Arnell Stiller, alias Amy Scott, in the 1964 episode, "The Case of the Garrulous Go-Between."

In 1966, she was cast as Carrie Huntington in the Death Valley Days episode "The Courtship of Carrie Huntington", set in the future Washington State. In the story line Jesse Pearson plays Henry Windsor, who is hired to take Carrie to her sister's wedding after she misses the stagecoach. Henry and Carrie engage in a mock wedding, but on the return trip, Henry wins her over after they are held by Indians, and Carrie nurses a sick child to health. Helen Kleeb, a native of Washington State, plays Carrie's mother, and Dub Taylor was cast in a cameo role as a station agent.^[2]

Randall, a long-time heavy smoker, died of lung cancer in 1984 at the age of forty-nine. She was survived by two sons, Blake and Kenneth Powell.^[3]

References

1. ↑ "Leave It to Beaver" (1957) - Full cast and crew
2. ↑ "The Courtship of Carrie Huntington on Death Valley Days". Internet Movie Data Base. March 17, 1966. Retrieved September 8, 2015. 
3. ↑ Sue Randall - Biography

External links

• Sue Randall at the Internet Movie Database
• Sue Randall at Find a Grave