Kay Aldridge — Acting | Biography, Movies & Career

Biography

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Katharine Gratten Aldridge (July 9, 1917 – January 12, 1995) was an American actress and model, best known for playing feisty and imperiled heroines in black-and-white serials during the 1940s. A notable role was as Nyoka Gordon in Perils of Nyoka.

Aldridge was born on July 9, 1917 in Tallahassee, Florida. Her father was a surveyor and her mother was an artist and writer. After attending her first year of high school in Westminster, Maryland, she enrolled in St. Mary's Female Seminary (now St. Mary's College of Maryland) in St. Mary's City, Maryland. While at St. Mary's, she acted in plays, played basketball, and was a member of the Delta Phi Epsilon sorority.

Following her high school graduation in 1934, Aldridge found work with the John Powers modeling agency in New York. She appeared on the covers of magazines such as Life, Ladies' Home Journal, Redbook, and Look. In 1937, Aldridge was chosen as one of the ten most photographed girls in the world, and was selected to go to Hollywood to appear in the United Artists film Vogues of 1938.

In 1939 she signed a contract with 20th Century Fox, and in the next few years landed a number of minor and largely decorative roles, credited as Katherine Aldridge. The films she made during this period include Shooting High (1940) playing Evelyn Trent, Sailor's Lady (1940) playing Georgine, Down Argentine Way (1940) playing Helen Carson, and Dead Men Tell (1941) playing Laura Thursday. She was among the actresses screen tested for the part of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind.

After her contract with 20th Century Fox expired in 1941, she was approach by Republic Pictures to star in an upcoming film serial. Although she considered serial work a "comedown" from being a featured player at Fox, she accepted the offer because it offered her a lead role and a salary of about $650 a week, good money at the time. Her first serial for Republic was Perils of Nyoka (1942), which offered dramatic cliffhanger scenes at the end of each episode. She retired from acting in 1945.

Aldridge was married three times: to Arthur Cameron from 1945 to 1954, to Richard Derby Tucker from 1956 until his death in 1979, and lastly to Harry Nasland until his death in 1988. In her later years she lived in Camden, Maine, and was a locally renowned hostess.

Aldridge died of a heart attack on January 12, 1995 in Rockport, Maine. She is interred at Sea View Cemetery in Rockport, Maine.