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'Honeymooners' star on becoming 'Trixie'
01:36 - Source: CNN

Story highlights

Jane Kean was best known as Trixie on the TV revival of "The Honeymooners" in 1966

She died after a fall that led to a hemorrhagic stroke

Credits ranged from TV series such as "Growing Pains" and "Scarecrow and Mrs. King,"

CNN  — 

Jane Kean, who played diverse roles during a long career but was best known as Trixie on the TV revival of “The Honeymooners,” has died. She was 90.

Kean, who lived in Toluca Lake, California, died Tuesday at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, her niece, Deirdre Wolpert, said Friday. She was hospitalized after a fall that led to a hemorrhagic stroke.

In 2002, Kean told CNN that her work with Jackie Gleason predated “The Honeymooners” revival. They did vaudeville together decades earlier.

“As a matter of fact, we both – I hate to say how long ago it was – but we were doing one-nighters, the Loews Pitkin, Loews Melba,” she said. “I was the singer on the bill and he was the comic. And we were getting $50 a show.”

Her credits spanned decades and ranged from TV series such as “Growing Pains” and “The Facts of Life” to “Scarecrow and Mrs. King,” according to IMDb.com.

But Kean, who was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on April 10, 1923, was best remembered for her role as Trixie Norton when Gleason and CBS revived “The Honeymooners” in 1966. The actress who played Trixie in the classic black-and-white sitcom was Joyce Randolph.

“I had run into an agent when I went to see ‘The Odd Couple’ with Art Carney,” Kean told CNN in 2002. “And I was with my husband. And we drove back to California, and when I got back there, the agent called. … So he said, you’re not going to believe this, but you’re going to be Trixie Norton. And it’s going to be a musical and you’re going to be able to sing and dance and do the whole number.”

Wolpert said a private memorial service will be held at Kean’s home in the next couple of weeks.

“She was just an extraordinary person,” Wolpert said. “Completely independent, and traveling. Last year she did a two-hour one-woman show, a retrospective with film clips and everything. She was amazing.”

Kean is survived by Wolpert and her husband and their two children. Kean is also survived by a stepson from her second marriage and his family.

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