RANDY SHARP
Randy was born in New York City in 1963. When her parents separated she moved to England with her mother and sister. Living in England in the 1970’s was not amusing – a lot of people really hated Americans, plus her name means “horny” over there. Randy is a terrible student and was expelled from every school she attended. Receiving only two O levels (exams essential for college placement in the UK) she was removed and installed in an American liberal arts college called Simon’s Rock.
The transition from a boarding school where you were only allowed to wear your own clothes for one hour on Sunday to – basically – a “free-spirited” (no rules) hippie school was a profound experience. Randy barely graduated in 1984 with a 1.7 grade point average. She has always been interested in entertaining as both her parents were consummate hosts. Cooking began as an offshoot to simply having friends over and her fascination with it continued through her 30’s. One day Randy’s friend David gave her an immersion course in french cooking at The International Culinary Center in NYC.
The rest is history.
Crew
Producer : Lynn Mancinelli
Video Production and Post-Production provided : Mad Hatter Media Group
Director of Photography & Editor: Nicholas Guldner
Additional Camera: Hai-Tao-Wu, Adam Benn, Jordan Sommerlad, Shachar Langlev, Brian Buño
Still Photographer & Web Design : Regina Betancourt
Music : Paul Carbonara
Social Media : Brian Barnhart & Regina Betancourt
Dinner Party Tonight, featured in Vanity Fair!
FROM THE MAGAZINE // NOVEMBER 2019 ISSUE
The Often Perilous, Sometimes Lucrative, and Ever-Evolving Business of Being a YouTube Star in 2019
…The conversation I had with Randy Sharp, a Manhattan theater director who makes appealing, generous cooking videos for her channel, Dinner Party Tonight It has (for now) only 8,000 or so subscribers. We had a long meal together a few months ago, during which Sharp told me about the intense feeling of connection she shares with some of her fans. “I had one lady, oh my God, [she] wrote me, she’s probably 40 or 45. She says, ‘My husband died unexpectedly and I’ve been holed up in my house for two years. And I started watching your videos. My husband and I used to entertain all the time, and it made me sick to think about having people over.’ And—this sent me over the moon—she says, ‘I just had some people over for the first time in two years.’ ”I like what that says about YouTube’s purest possibility.
BY RICHARD LAWSON for VANITY FAIR
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