Audrey Cotter is best remembered for playing Alice Kramden in the television show, "The Honeymooners."[1][2]
Audrey Cotter was born February 8, 1922 in New York City, the youngest of the fourchildren of the Rev. Francis James Meadows Cotter and his wife, the former Ida Miller Taylor. The couple had been Episcopal missionaries in Wuchang, Hubei, China. Audrey's older sister was actress, Jayne Meadows. She attended high school at the Barrington School for Girls in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.[2][3][4][5]
After high school, Audrey trained as a coloratura soprano and sang in the Broadway musical "Top Banana." She soon after became a regular on television in "The Bob and Ray Show." She was hired to play Alice on "The Jackie Gleason Show" after Pert Kelton was forced to leave the show.[2]
When "The Honeymooners" became a half-hour sitcom on CBS, Audrey continued as "Alice." She returned to play Alice after the show was over when Jackie Gleason would produce occasional Honeymooners specials in the 1970s, as well as on other shows like "The Steve Allen Show" and "The Jack Benny Program." Audrey was the only member of "The Honeymooners" cast to earn residuals after the "Classic 39" episodes of the show from 1955-56 started airing in reruns, thanks to a clause in her contract encouraged by her brother Edward, a lawyer.[2]
She appeared in a 1960 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, entitled "Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat", in feature films, on Dean Martin's television variety shows and celebrity roasts, and in "Too Close for Comfort" (1982–85). She guest-starred on The Red Skelton Show, made an appearance in an episode of Murder, She Wrote ("If the Frame Fits"), and made an appearance in an episode of The Simpsons ("Old Money"), wherein she voiced the role of Bea Simmons, Grandpa Simpson's girlfriend. Her last work was an appearance on Dave's World, in which she played the mother of Kenny (Shadoe Stevens).[2]
Audrey first married Randolph Rouse in 1956 and divorced in 1958. No known children.[2]
On August 24, 1961, Audrey married her second husband, Robert F. "Bob" Six, president of Continental Airlines, in Honolulu, Hawaii. He died on October 6, 1986.[2]
Audrey served as director of the First National Bank of Denver for 11 years, the first woman to hold this position. From 1961–1981, she was an advisory director of Continental Airlines.[2]
In October 1994, Audrey published her memoirs, Love, Alice: My Life As A Honeymooner.
In 1995, Audrey was diagnosed with lung cancer and given a year to live. She declined all but palliative treatment. She died on February 3, 1996, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after slipping into a coma, five days before her 74th birthday. She was interred in Holy Cross Cemetery, next to her husband. [1][2]
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C > Cotter | M > Meadows > Audrey (Cotter) Meadows
Categories: Television Actors | Featured Connections Archive 2022 | Notables
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