AUDREY MEADOWS "ALICE" HONEYMOONERS (DECEASED) SIGNED 8X10 JSA COA #N44419

(DECEASED) ORIGINAL Autograph 8 x 10 PHOTO AUTHENTICALLY SIGNED AND AUTHENTICATED BY JSA 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. 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 and in a parody sketch on The Jack Benny Program. Meadows 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. Her brother Edward, a lawyer, had inserted a clause into her original contract whereby she would be paid if the shows were rebroadcast, thus earning her millions of dollars. [3] However, Joyce Randolph, who played Trixie Norton, did receive royalty payments when the "lost" Honeymooners episodes from the variety shows were later released.