Letters to J. C. Kelton

Pert L. Kelton was an American stage, movie, radio, and television actress. She was the original Alice Kramden in The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason. During the 1930s, she was a prominent comedic supporting and leading actress in Hollywood films such as Gregory La Cava's Bed of Roses with Constance Bennett and Raoul Walsh's The Bowery with Wallace Beery and George Raft. She performed in a dozen Broadway productions between 1925 and 1968. She is probably best known for creating the role of Mrs. Paroo in the original 1957 Broadway production of the musical The Music Man, which she reprised in the 1962 movie adaptation. In the early 1950s, her career was interrupted as a result of Hollywood blacklisting, leading to her departure from The Honeymooners.