The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 36

2004:02:26:20:26:27 OBITUARIES B13 LOSANGELESTIMES By Bill Christine Times Staff Writer John Russell, a thoroughbred trainer who won national championships with Girl in 1972 and died Wednesday at his home in Del Mar, Calif. Russell, 67, had been battling cancer. Anative of England, he took out a license in 1958, and trained many years for the Ogden Phipps family and Fred Hooper, two of the biggest stables in the United States. Russell, who launched a public stable in Southern California in 1980, retired from training in 1995. He trained 55 stakes winners.

In addition to Girl, some of his other top horses were Majestic Light, Track Robbery, Intrepid Hero, Effervescing and Tri Jet. Russell saddled Precisionist in August 1988 when the horse ran a mile in 1:33 a Del Mar record that still stands. Girl was voted into the Racing Hall of Fame at Saratoga Springs, N.Y., in 1976. In a 1999 poll by Blood-Horse magazine that rated the top horses of all time, she was ranked 51st. Girl won a third championship, for trainer Ross Fenstermaker, in 1975 and at the time of her retirement had earned then a record for a female.

For Russell, Girl won 16 races, including the Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs in 1972 and the Santa Margarita Handicap at Santa Anita in 1973. Under 129 pounds, she won the Santa Barbara Handicap at Santa Anita in 1973. The son of a trainer, Russell left England in the summer of 1953 with plans to attend Stanford University. A month before school started, he hitchhiked to the old Tanforan track near San Francisco, sneaked onto the backstretch and landed a job galloping horses, leaving Stanford behind him. Among the first horsemen he worked for were the father-son team of Ben and Jimmy Jones, who trained for the powerful Calumet Farm.

After he quit training, Russell freelanced as a racing journalist and published a novel about racing. He also was active in finding homes for retired racehorses, working for the California Equine Retirement Foundation and TranquilityFarms in Tehachapi, Calif. Russell is survived by his wife, Diane; and two sons, Jonathan and Tristan. John Russell, 67; Horse Trainer Won 2 National Titles With Girl By Dennis McLellan Times Staff Writer John Randolph, a Tony Award-winning stage, screen and television character actor and a union and social activist who was blacklisted during the McCarthy era, has died. He was 88.

Randolph, who continued acting until about four years ago, died of natural causes Tuesday at his home in Hollywood, according to his family. He was not a household name, but the balding actor was a familiar face in movies and on television, where he often played authority figures. He was the mayor in (1974); a police chief in (1973); a judge in (1982); and Jack father in (1985). Most recently, he played Tom grandfather in Got (1998). Randolph made frequent guest appearances on television series, as well as appearing in the TV movie Missiles of and a miniseries.

He also was a cast member on several series, including (1975) and (1990), and he played father on several episodes of Randolph was such a familiar face that when people recognized him on the street, ask if they knew him. say, been in your living room many his daughter-in-law, Kate Randolph, said Thursday. But Randolph, who made his Broadway debut in 1938 in had an even longer career on stage. He appeared in the original New York stage productions of Sound of Your Back, Little and and he was frequently seen on local stages until 2000. In 1987, he received both a Tony and a Drama Desk Award for his role as the communist, left-wing in Neil was a fine man and a wonderful longtime friend James Whitmore, who appeared in in 1947 with Randolph, told The Times on Thursday.

had a marvelous sense of humor and never took himself too seriously. I prized his Actor Ossie Davis, another longtime friend, said: was a damn good actor and he brought a sense of realism and ease to whatever it was that he was Davis, who met Randolph about 1950, also remembered his activism for a variety of causes. was basically the black and white struggle, the anticommunist struggle all of those things, John was in the thick of it, and I certainly too far he said. The son of Russian and Romanian immigrants, Randolph was born Emanuel Cohen in the Bronx. But his mother remarried after his father died, and his stepfather, Joseph Lippman, renamed him Mortimer.

Randolph, whose dramatic training began with two years in the Federal TheatreProject in the 1930s and who later studied acting with Stella Adler, legally changed his name to John Randolph in 1940. Aself-described Randolph told the Los Angeles Times in 1988 that his activism started in the 1930s. could you not become radicalized during the he asked. have to be an idiot not to be radical with 17 million unemployed. Also, I went to a wonderful college, City College of New York, and the ferment there was extraordinary.

opened up a communist point of view, Socialism, Marxism, Henry George, all that. nothing wrong with absorbing new ideas and testing Randolph, who served in the Army Air Forces during World War II, married actress Sarah Cunningham in Chicago in 1945 between his matinee and evening performance in the Orson Welles-produced and directed Cunningham died in 1986. After the war, Randolph became one of the original members of the Actors Studio. He also resumed his activism, rallying for better housing for veterans; for striking miners in Harlan County, and against the death penalty for Willie McGee, who was nevertheless executed for raping a white woman in Mississippi; and for convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. He later marched with the Rev.

Martin Luther King Jr. In the early 1950s, his out- spokenness and defense of other accused figures during McCarthyism led to his being blacklisted as was his wife. In 1955, they were both called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. both were hostile his daughter-in-law said. took the Fifth and refused to answer any Although he lost many acting jobs during his 15 years on the blacklist, Randolph continued to work onstage in and out of New York.

Davis recalled that was someone who would always manage to get a job, and any other actors who needed a buck or whose cause needed support could depend on career took a dramatic upswing when director John Frankenheimer cast him as well as fellow blacklisted actors Will Geer and Jeff Corey in the 1966 science fiction drama In the film, Randolph plays adisenchanted middle-aged man who is surgically made to look decades younger; Rock Hudson plays the role for the remainder of the movie. The film not only broke the blacklist for Randolph, but also launched his career in movies, which included providing the voice for John Mitchell in the Randolph, who served on the board of directors for the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and Equity, also was a past president of the local Ensemble Studio Theater. Ever the activist, his causes in the 1980s included Amnesty International, medical aid to El Salvador, TransAfricaand Athletes and Artists Against Apartheid. He also headed the Council of American-Soviet Friendship, a cultural exchange organization. He is survived by two children, Martha and Harrison; a granddaughter; and a brother, Jerry Lippman.

Amemorial service is pending. had a marvelous sense of humor and never took himself too seriously. I prized his James Whitmore, fellow actor and longtime friend of John Randolph John Randolph, 88; Tony-Winning Character Actor Was Blacklisted JOHN RANDOLPH In addition to his career, the stage, screen and TV actor involved himself in social activism from his college days until late in his life..