Jack Randall (actor)

Addison Byron Owen Randall (May 12, 1906 – July 16, 1945) was an American film actor, chiefly in Westerns. He often used a pseudonym for his film work, chiefly Jack Randall, and he played roles as Allen Byron and Byron Vance.

Jack Randall
Randall in Girls in Chains (1943)
Born
Addison Byron Owen Randall

(1906-05-12)May 12, 1906
San Fernando, California, U.S.
DiedJuly 16, 1945(1945-07-16) (aged 39)
Canoga Park, California, U.S.
Resting placeForest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California
Other namesAllen Byron
Byron Vance
Years active1933–1943
Spouse(s)Louise Stanley
(m. 19??; div. 19??)
​
​
(m. 1941)​
RelativesRobert Livingston (brother)

Early life

Randall was born May 12, 1906, in San Fernando, California as Addison Byron Owen Randall. He attended Kemper Military School in Boonville, Missouri. The reference book Who's Who in Hollywood gives Randall's place of birth as Quincy, Illinois.[1]

Film career

Randall began his career as a supporting actor and foil at RKO, but he left when Monogram Pictures promised him the chance to star in films. They were true to their word, and he appeared in a series of Western films through the 1930s and 1940s. (In 1935, he actually played a star of Westerns in RKO's Another Face, released in 1935.)

Many of Randall's early B-movies with Monogram feature him as a singing cowboy, but his later roles were generally straight Western stories, and all were hampered by the low budgets typical of this studio. Many of his cowboy characters were named "Jack". His older brother Robert Livingston (born Robert Edward Randall) was also an actor in Western films of the time.

Randall adopted his new "Allen Byron" identity in the 1940s in an effort to boost his fading professional fortunes, but the roles he received with new studio Producers Releasing Corporation were not up to the task.

Death

He died unexpectedly in 1945 while filming a serial called The Royal Mounted Rides Again for Universal Studios, after a fall from a horse at Canoga Park, California, in which he struck a tree.[2] Some sources attribute his death to injuries sustained during the fall, which in those versions resulted from an attempt to recover a hat he had dropped, while others state that he suffered a fatal heart attack before falling.[3] He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, in the Garden of Memory, near his older brother, Robert Livingston.[4][5]

Personal life

Randall twice married and divorced actress Louise Stanley, and carried on an affair with former silent film actress Louise Brooks. At the time of his death, he was married to his second wife, actress Barbara Bennett, sister of actresses Constance Bennett and Joan Bennett.[3]

Partial filmography

References
  1. Rowan, Terry (2015). Who's Who In Hollywood!. Lulu.com. pp. 292–293. ISBN 9781329074491. Retrieved April 28, 2017.
  2. Associated Press, "Cowboy Actor - Husband Of Barbara Bennett Killed", The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Tuesday 17 July 1945, Volume 51, page 1.
  3. "Addison Randall", Allmovie reprinted in the New York Times online, accessed June 27, 2006.
  4. Profile, B-westerns.com. Accessed November 28, 2022.
  5. Celebrities in Los Angeles Cemeteries. Accessed November 28, 2022.
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