Adelaide Klein

Adelaide Klein (July 8, 1900 – March 18, 1983) was an American actress born in New York City who built a career spanning radio, television, film, and stage over approximately three decades. She attended Julia Richman High School, where she was exposed to drama while also preparing for a career in business. After graduating, she worked as a secretary before eventually transitioning into performance.

Klein entered radio as a singer in the late 1920s, but her facility with character work and dialect drew increasing demand, and by 1933 she had shifted to acting full-time. She became particularly recognized for her command of dialects, ultimately mastering twelve distinct ones for use in radio performances. Her radio roles included Hilda the maid on We, The Abbotts, the Dragon Lady on Terry and the Pirates, Agatha Meek on Meet Mr. Meek, and a Russian countess on The House on Q Street, as well as an appearance in Sometime Before Morning. She also performed in radio comedies and soap operas throughout her career.

Klein's Broadway career ran from 1936 to 1963, encompassing eight productions. She made her Broadway debut in Double Dummy in November 1936, followed by Brooklyn, U.S.A. in December 1941 and Uncle Harry, which ran from May 1942 into 1943. Her subsequent Broadway appearances included Collector's Item in February 1952, The Immoralist from February through May 1954, Once Upon a Tailor in May 1955, the drama Jane Eyre from May through June 1958, and Marathon '33, which opened in December 1963 and ran into February 1964. During World War II, she also performed in a USO production of Blithe Spirit.

Her film work included The Naked City in 1948 and The Enforcer in 1951. She was signed to portray the character Martha in director Otto Preminger's Where the Sidewalk Ends, and scenes were filmed in New York City, but the role was ultimately filled by another actress. On television, Klein appeared on The Boris Karloff Mystery Playhouse and Studio One in Hollywood in 1949, The Ford Theatre Hour and The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse in 1950, and played the landlady on the situation comedy Two Girls Named Smith in 1951, among roles on other series.

In the mid-1940s, Klein was active in the American Federation of Radio Artists, serving as a delegate representing New York at national conferences in 1943 and 1944, where she worked alongside colleagues including Donna Keath, Minerva Pious, Ann Shepherd, Selena Royle, and Hester Sondergaard. In 1950, Klein was among those listed in Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television, a blacklisting publication. The listing effectively ended her television work, though she continued performing in theatre.

Klein married Louis S. Wettels in Manhattan in the late 1920s and later married Norman Annenberg. She died of a brain tumor on March 18, 1983, at the age of 82.