- Audrey Meadows, The Honeymooners, TV, 1955-1956. From 1951 to 1952, Kelton was Jackie Gleason’s wife in a series of sketches on his variety series Cavalcade of Stars. When the skits became a fullblown sitcom, Gleason was still bus driver, Ralph Kramden, but his sharp-tongued missus, Alice, became Meadows. Fair enough. It happens. Except, CBS said Kelton had a bad heart condition when the disgusting truth was that she was blacklisted as a suspected Communist! Or, at least, her announcer-actor husband Ralph Bell was and, therefore, his wife by association (with her husband!). To his credit, Gleason fought for her to remain on the show… She was denied work for eight years and then carried on acting until her death in TV and films. She was, for example, Shirley Jones’ mother in The Music Man, 1961… and played her own mother in a special musical Honeymooners in The Jackie Gleason Show, in 1967.
Awaiting photo
Pert Kelton was Alice Kramden in Jackie Gleason’s sketches but Audrey Meadows won the Gleason series [© CBS Photo Archive]
Birth year: 1907Death year: 1968Other name: Casting Calls: 0