Kate Meeks
actress
- Born:
- 1838, New York City, New York, USA
- Died:
- 1925-09-04, New York City, New York, USA
- Professions:
- actress
Biography
Born in Manhattan in 1838, Kate Meek first stepped into the gaslight during the early 1850s and never left it. By the time her hair turned the color of stage snow, audiences still leaned forward when she spoke: her 1894–95 turn as Mrs. Batterson in *Too Much Johnson* at the Standard Theatre became the stuff of city folklore. Seventy-seven summers later, flickering celluloid rather than footlights caught her quiet authority. In 1915 she surrendered to the camera exactly twice: first as the shrewd, warm-hearted Aunt Polly in Allan Dwan’s breezy *David Harum* (adapted from Edward Noyes Westcott’s stage hit and powered by May Allison and Harold Lockwood); then as the steadfast Mrs. Remington in George Irving’s solemn *The Builder of Bridges*, drawn from Alfred Sutro’s play and anchored by C. Aubrey Smith’s granite presence. Two films, two studios—Famous Players and Frohman Amusement—and then the curtains of time. She died in her native New York at 87, leaving behind laughter, tears, and the echo of a voice that had filled both boards and screens.
