Obituaries: Sheila MacRae, Dies at 93

Sheila MacRae, Dies at 93                     

   Sheila MacRae, a film, TV and stage actress who played Alice Kramden, wife of bus driver Ralph Kramden, on musical-comedy episodes of “The Honeymooners” featured as part of “The Jackie Gleason Show” in the late 1960s, died on March 6 at the Lillian Booth Actor’s Home in Englewood, New Jersey. She was 93.

   The sassy Alice Kramden was played by a series of actresses: first Pert Kelton in 1955, then Audrey Meadows and later Sue Ane Langdon before MacRae took over the role opposite Gleason.

   On TV, MacRae also played herself in a famous episode of “I Love Lucy,” “The Fashion Show”; briefly had her own series in 1971; appeared on soap “General Hospital” as Madelyn Richmond in 1991; was a series regular on the single-season “Parenthood” in 1990-91; and guested on series including “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” “The Love Boat” and “Murder, She Wrote.”

   Born in London, Sheila Margaret Stephens married actor-singer Gordon MacRae in 1941, and they appeared together onstage in a number of musical productions, including a 1964 staging of “The Bells Are Ringing” and a revival production of “Guys and Dolls” in which she played Miss Adelaide on Broadway.

   She made one of her first bigscreen appearances in the 1950 women’s prison picture “Caged,” starring Eleanor Parker. Among her other film credits were the beach pictures “Bikini Beach” and “How to Stuff a Wild Bikini”

   The MacRaes were divorced in 1967, and Gordon MacRae died in 1986.

   Sheila MacRae also produced a film, “The Perils of P.K.,” in 1986.

   Survivors include a daughter, actress Heather MacRae, and a son, William Gordon MacRae. Another daughter, actress Meredith MacRae, died in 2000. Another son, Robert Bruce MacRae, died in 2010.

Extracts from Variety