Audrey Meadows

Audrey Meadows
Born	Audrey Cotter February 8, 1922 Wuchang, China
Died	February 3, 1996 (aged 73) Beverly Hills, California, USA
Other name(s)	Audrey Meadows Audrey Six
Spouse(s)	Robert Six (1961-1986) Randolph Rouse (1956-1958)
Official website

Audrey Meadows (February 8, 1922 – February 3, 1996) ^[1]was an American actress best known for her role as the deadpan housewife Alice Kramden on the 1950s American television comedy The Honeymooners.

Early life

Born as Audrey Cotter in Wu-ch'ang, China, the youngest of four children, her parents, the Rev Francis James Meadows Cotter and his wife, the former Ida Miller Taylor were Episcopalian missionaries. She is the younger sister of actress Jayne Meadows.

Career

Meadows' family returned to their home from China in Sharon, Connecticut in the 1920s. After high school, she moved to New York City and became a singer in the Broadway show Top Banana before becoming a regular on the Bob and Ray Show. She was then hired to play Alice on The Jackie Gleason Show after the original Alice, Pert Kelton, who originated the role when the Honeymooners was only a small skit on Gleason's variety show, lost the role due to the blacklist. Her absence was explained away as due to her health.

Meadows retained the role when The Honeymooners became a half-hour situation comedy on CBS. She then returned to play Alice after a long hiatus, when Gleason produced occasional Honeymooners specials in the 1970s. Meadows had auditioned for Gleason and was initially turned down for being too chic and pretty for Alice. Meadows submitted a photo of herself looking plain and drab the next day and won the role.

Later years

Meadows appeared in a number of films, worked with Dean Martin on his television variety shows and celebrity roasts, and then returned to situation comedy in the 1980s playing the mother-in-law on Too Close for Comfort. She guest-starred on The Red Skelton Show show and made an appearance in an episode of The Simpsons ("Old Money"), wherein she voiced the role of Bea Simmons, Grandpa Simpsons' girlfriend. Her last work was on the sitcom Dave's World, in which she played Kenny's (Shadoe Stevens) mother.

Personal life

On August 24, 1961, Meadows married her second husband, Robert F. "Bob" Six, President of Continental Airlines, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Reportedly a very happy, although childless, union.^[2] Meadows served as director of the First National Bank of Denver for eleven years, the first woman to hold this position, and was also an Advisory Director of Continental Airlines. Robert Six died in 1986; Audrey never remarried.

Between 1961 and 1981, Audrey Six was actively involved in marketing programs at Continental, including participating in the design of flight attendant and customer service agent uniforms, the design of aircraft interior, and design of Continental's exclusive airport club lounges, known as the "President's Club".^[2] In October 1994, Meadows published her memoirs, entitled, Love, Alice.

Final illness

In 1995, Audrey Meadows was diagnosed with lung cancer and given roughly a year to live; she declined pro-active treatment. She had apparently been estranged from her sister and her sister's family and had not talked with them for about a year.^{[citation needed]} Jayne Meadows-Allen was unaware of Audrey's illness and first learned her sister was hospitalized when she was on a Hollywood sound stage appearing on an episode of a sitcom, High Society; she rushed to the hospital but Audrey was already in a coma.

Death

Meadows died on February 3, 1996, aged 73, and was interred in Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City.

References

External links

• Audrey Meadows official website
• Audrey Meadows at Find A Grave
• Audrey Meadows at the Internet Movie Database
• Audrey Meadows at TV.com