Barbara Meek

Barbara Anita Meek (February 26, 1934 – October 3, 2015) was an American actress whose career spanned stage, television, and film across more than four decades. Born in Detroit, Michigan, to Juanita (née Coleman) and Harold Talmadge Meek, she was the maternal granddaughter of the Reverend Horatius "H.H." Coleman, pastor of the Greater Macedonia Baptist Church. She attended Northwestern High School before enrolling at Wayne State University, where her abilities earned her an invitation to join the graduate theater program as an undergraduate. During her college years she was a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. In 1965, she toured with the United Services Organization, performing for wounded soldiers stationed on Okinawa and at other U.S. Army bases.

In February 1968, Meek married actor Martin Molson (1928–1980), and the couple joined the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island, that same year, making their Trinity debuts together in Brother to Dragons. Meek remained an active member of Trinity Rep from 1968 onward, ultimately appearing in more than 100 of the company's productions. Her stage work there encompassed leading roles in August Wilson's Fences and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Athol Fugard's Boesman and Lena, Terrence McNally's Master Class, Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer, and Lorraine Hansberry's Raisin in the Sun, among many others. She also took on roles in Peer Gynt, The Threepenny Opera, Tartuffe, The Visit, Fires in the Mirror, Henry IV, James Purdy's Eustace Chisholm and the Works, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, and Adrian Hall and Robert Cumming's adaptation of A Christmas Carol, in which she played Ebenezer Scrooge. In 2008 she appeared in Blithe Spirit and Curt Columbus' adaptation of Antigone at Trinity Rep, and during the 2010–2011 season she was part of Camelot, The Crucible, and Steel Magnolias, followed by Sparrow Grass in the 2011–2012 season.

Meek's Broadway career ran from 1970 to 1980 and included appearances in Wilson in the Promised Land and Division Street. Beyond Trinity Rep and Broadway, she performed at a range of regional theaters, among them the Hilberry Repertory Theatre, the Dallas Theater Center, the Cleveland Play House, The Repertory Theater of St. Louis, the Hampton Playhouse, The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, and the Brandeis University Theatre. She played Sadie in Having Our Say at Trinity Rep, a role she later reprised for the play's European premiere at Vienna's English Theatre. In 1996, she appeared in the world premiere of A Lesson Before Dying, adapted by Romulus Linney, at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.

On television, Meek was best known for portraying Ellen Canby across two seasons of Archie Bunker's Place. She made recurring guest appearances on the daytime dramas As the World Turns, playing Veronica Everestt in 1992 and 1997; General Hospital, as Samantha Monroe in 1994 and 1999; and Guiding Light, as Verne Garrison in 1993 and 1999. Her other television credits included the CBS series Melba, starring Melba Moore; Big Brother Jake on The Family Channel; and the Emmy Award-winning television movie See How She Runs, with Joanne Woodward. She also appeared in the television movie Jimmy B. and Andre, starring Susan Clark and Alex Karras. Additionally, she was featured in Adrian Hall's PBS adaptations of Robert Penn Warren's Brother to Dragons, Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, and Harriet Beecher Stowe's Life Among the Lowly.

Among the honors Meek received were an Honorary Doctor of Arts Degree from the University of Rhode Island, the 2004 Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Foundation for Repertory Theatre Award, the Wayne State University Arts Achievement Award in Theatre, and the Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence. In 2006, the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society presented her with the Edward Bannister and Christiana Bannister History Makers Award. Meek remained married to Martin Molson until his death on May 28, 1980; together they had a daughter, Leslie Matuko Molson. Meek died on October 3, 2015, of a heart attack.