Audrey Meadows
| Audrey Meadows | |
|---|---|
Meadows in 1959
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| Born |
Audrey Cotter February 8, 1922 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Died | February 3, 1996 (aged 73) Beverly Hills, California, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Lung cancer |
| Other names | Audrey Six |
| Occupation | Actress, banker, memoirist |
| Years active | 1951–1995 |
| Known for |
The Honeymooners Too Close for Comfort |
| Spouse(s) | Randolph Rouse (1956–1958; divorced) Robert Six (1961–1986; his death) |
| Website | Official website |
Audrey Meadows (February 8, 1922 – February 3, 1996) was an American actress best known for her role as the deadpan housewife Alice Kramden on the 1950s American television comedy The Honeymooners.
Audrey Meadows was born Audrey Cotter in New York City in 1922, the youngest of four siblings. Her parents, the Rev. Francis James Meadows Cotter and his wife, the former Ida Miller Taylor, had been Episcopal missionaries in Wuchang, Hubei, China, where her three elder siblings were born. The family returned to live in New York in 1921. Her older sister was actress Jayne Meadows. She attended high school at the Barrington School for Girls in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
After high school, she sang in the Broadway musical Top Banana before becoming a regular on television in The Bob and Ray Show. She was then hired to play Alice on The Jackie Gleason Show after the actress who originated the role, Pert Kelton, was forced to leave the show due to blacklisting, although the official reason given was that Kelton was suffering from a health problem.
When The Honeymooners became a half-hour situation comedy on CBS, Meadows continued in the role. 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 to play Alice. Meadows submitted a far different photo of herself, looking much plainer, the next day and won the role of Alice.
The character of Alice became more associated with Meadows than with the others who played her, and she reprised her role as Alice on other shows, as well, both in a man-on-the-street interview for The Steve Allen Show (Steve Allen was her brother-in-law) and in a parody sketch on The Jack Benny Program.
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