Julia Meade

Julia Meade Kunze (December 17, 1925 – May 16, 2016) was an American actress and television personality whose career spanned stage, film, and broadcasting across several decades. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, she was the daughter of a typewriter salesman and Caroline Meade, who had served as leading lady with actor Walter Hampden from 1923 to 1933. When Meade was ten years old, her family relocated to Glen Rock, New Jersey, where she attended Ridgewood High School and participated in school productions, graduating with the class of 1944. She subsequently earned a degree from the Yale School of Drama and arrived in New York City, where she began working as a model in 1948.

Meade became a prominent television figure in the early 1950s, appearing as a regular on Club Embassy on NBC in 1952 and on The Dennis James Show on ABC from 1952 to 1954. In 1953 she became the public face of the Lincoln division of the Ford Motor Company, a role that brought her widespread recognition. Her live commercial work on The Ed Sullivan Show — promoting products including Kodak cameras and Life magazine — earned her designation by TV Guide as the program host's favorite salesgirl. Her Lincoln automobile promotions, which could run as long as five minutes on air, were described by writer Gerald Nachman as combining the qualities of an auto dealer with those of a chic sexpot. Meade herself told Life magazine in 1960 that she approached commercials as though performing the role of a queen in Hamlet. She also served as a host of Playhouse 90 and appeared as a panelist on What's My Line? and Get the Message. In 1959 she and Zachary Scott co-hosted Spotlight Playhouse, a summer anthology series on CBS. From 1969 to 1971 she hosted the syndicated daily program Ask Julia Meade, in which she responded to viewer letters on family matters, and in the mid-1970s she hosted the cable television program Julia Meade and Friends.

Her Broadway career extended from 1954 to 1969 and encompassed five productions. She appeared in The Tender Trap in 1954, followed by the comedy Roman Candle and the farce Double in Hearts. In 1962 she took on the lead role in Mary, Mary, performing it for six weeks on Broadway before joining the national company and continuing in the role for a year in Chicago, Illinois. That performance earned her the Sarah Siddons Award for 1962–1963. Her final Broadway credit was The Front Page in 1969, and that same year the cast recording of the production was released on a record album by the Theatre Guild for mail-order distribution.

Meade's film work included the 1959 comedy Pillow Talk, in which she played Marie, followed by Tammy Tell Me True in 1961, Zotz! in 1962, and Presumed Innocent in 1990, in which she appeared as a moderator.

In 1952 Meade married Oliver Worsham Rudd, Jr., a commercial illustrator; the marriage lasted until his death in 1999, and the couple had two daughters. Meade died on May 16, 2016, at her home in Manhattan at the age of 90.