she was born on october 19, 1920 in cleveland, ohio. page was raised in st. louis, missouri. lawanda page and redd foxx were very close friends from the time they were pre-teens. they attended school and grew up together in st. louis. later on, they both entered the field of comedy separately and performed stage acts. page later recorded several live comedy albums for the laff records label in the late 1960s and early 1970s under the lawanda stage name. one release, a gold-selling album called "watch it, sucker!", was titled after one of her aunt esther character's catchphrases to capitalize on her newfound tv fame. during her tenure as a stand-up comic, which lasted all the way to the 1990s, she was often called "the queen of comedy", or "the black queen of comedy". other than the expletive-free "sane advice" album, released two years after the run of "sanford and son", most of page's albums and stand-up material were raunchy in nature.