Jayne Meadows, an Emmy-nominated actress known for her role on the TV series High Society, as well as the game show I've Got a Secret, died Sunday, April 26, of natural causes, Entertainment Tonight reports. She was 95 years old.
Born in China to missionary parents, Meadows first rose to fame in the 1940s. Over the next five-plus decades, she graced both stage and screen in projects including Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, and Undercurrent, which costarred Katharine Hepburn.
Between 1978 and 1996, she was nominated for three Primetime Emmys, for Meeting of Minds, St. Elsewhere, and High Society. According to ET, she also won the Susan B. Anthony Award and the International Platform Association Award — the latter because of her one-woman show.
Married to former Tonight Show host Steve Allen until his death in 2000, Meadows was the sister of actress Audrey Meadows, who played Jackie Gleason's wife on The Honeymooners. She had one son, Bill Allen, who honored his late mother in a letter to ET on Monday.
"She was the most loving mother and grandmother I could ever imagine," Bill wrote. "She was not only an extraordinarily gifted actress who could move audiences from laughter to tears and back again all in one scene, but she was the greatest story teller I have ever known, and I will miss her endlessly fascinating and frequently hilarious anecdotes about her life and the many brilliantly talented people she worked with and befriended along the way. She will be sorely missed and never forgotten."
