[1] Randolph was born Emanuel Hirsch Cohen in New York City on June 1, 1915, the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Romania.

[7] Randolph was one of the last blacklisted actors to regain employment in Hollywood films when director John Frankenheimer cast him in a major role in Seconds in 1966.

Randolph was in the original New York stage productions of The Sound of Music (as Von Trapp's butler, Franz), Paint Your Wagon, and The Visit.

In 1975, Randolph took over the role of the principal of fictional Harry S Truman High School in the series Lucas Tanner starring David Hartman.

He played Judge J. Waties Waring in "With All Deliberate Speed", a 1976 episode of CBS's mini-series The American Parade, dealing with events culminating in the 1954 Supreme Court decision (Brown v Board of Education) barring racial segregation in US public schools.

[8][9] In 1979, Randolph had a guest appearance on M*A*S*H as an adjutant army general admiring the culinary prowess of a master chef errantly assigned as a foot soldier in a front unit.

He was a special guest star in the 1986 ABC made-for-TV movie The Right of the People, playing Police Chief Hollander in a town soon allowing all adults to carry handguns.

Randolph co-starred with Alec Guinness, Leo McKern, Jeanne Moreau and Lauren Bacall, in the BBC production of A Foreign Field (1993) as a World War II veteran returning to France to find the woman he fell in love with.