Remembering Sue Randall, Miss Landers from ‘Leave It To Beaver’
Leave It to Beaver serves as a refuge for those of us who are weary of a world full of chaos – and running through all of the idealism on the show was a strong feeling of kindness. The Beaver, and every once in a while Wally, would get themselves into hot water, but at the end of the day, love would triumph, and, often, somewhere along the way, a valuable lesson or two would be learned. For almost 30 episodes, the Beav’s fifth-grade teacher, Miss Landers, helped little Theodore make sense of the world. Played by actress Sue Randall, Alice Landers was exactly what every kid hoped for in a teacher. She was smart, pretty, and kind, a hat trick in the world of education.
Based on various interviews with Sue that I’ve read, it’s clear that she enjoyed working on that classic TV show. However, she did tell TV columnist Charles Witbeck in 1958 that because she was most often working with children on the show, she got “used to bending” for most of her scenes.
Talking about the actor Robert “Rusty” Stevens, who played Larry Mondello on the show, she told Whitbeck that he “usually fell asleep at his desk right after lunch.”
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Before playing Miss Landers on Leave It to Beaver, Sue Randall had worked on a handful of TV shows, and she also appeared in the Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn feature film Desk Set. But it was this role that made her a familiar face in most American homes during the late fifties and early sixties, and then again later on when the show became perhaps even more popular as kids watched reruns after school during the seventies.
Around the same time she was on Leave It to Beaver, Sue also made a very memorable appearance on the original Twilight Zone TV series in an episode titled “And When the Sky Was Opened.” This is another episode of that show that was written by one of my favorite authors of all time and one of the most important writers on the series, Richard Matheson.
When the Leave It to Beaver revival series debuted during the eighties, I must admit that I was surprised Sue didn’t make an appearance. Back then, you couldn’t just race to the internet to find out what happened, so it would be years before I was able to discover why Sue just kind of disappeared from TV.
Now that I’ve been able to do a bit of research (thank you, internet), it seems like Sue retired from the world of entertainment after a car accident left her sidelined during the late sixties. I must admit, I don’t know the whole story here and I don’t need to know it, but I do know that somewhere along the way, Sue fell in love, got married a couple of times, and had a couple of kids. I suspect she may have decided that her family was her priority, and because of that, as much as any lingering injuries from an accident, she simply decided to stay away from the lights and cameras.
By the mid-seventies, Sue began to use her fame for the benefit of others. She took part in various telethons and other charitable events to raise money to support programs and research for arthritis, multiple sclerosis, blindness, and poor childhood education.
In the early eighties, Sue was diagnosed with lung and larynx cancer, and despite a brave battle, it was just too much for her. In 1984, at the all-too-young age of 49, Sue Randall, our kindly Miss Landers, passed away from that dreaded disease.
It would be easy to focus on the short time that she was here with us and grieve about that, but instead, I suggest we think about all that she was able to accomplish during her short lifetime. She was a star on a big hit TV show. She had a family whom she loved very much, and they loved her back just as fiercely. And she gave of herself; she did what she could to step outside of her own little world and help others.
That’s what I think we should focus on. It turns out, she was, in real life, every bit as wonderful as the character she played on Leave It to Beaver.
Remind
Puzzler '80s Comedy Classics
Vol 1, Issue 6
This issue is packed with puzzles and trivia from all your favorite '80s sitcoms.
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