I am given to understand she was once a terrible Rose Parade host. But with one exception, that’s not our primary interest around here. We generally talk about wider bodies of work. Besides, I’m not old enough to remember the event in question and have just heard about it from a former teacher. Her husband, Steve Allen, was the official host, and she was basically invited along because their careers coincided for many years. A lot of her credits were as Jayne Meadows Allen. But she also had a strong career of her own.

For one thing, her career started well before they met. She was signed to a contract with MGM in 1944. She was in Song of the Thin Man, the last of the series, in 1947. She made TV appearances in the early days of television, albeit not as prominently as her sister Audrey. She was a regular panelist on I’ve Got a Secret. She did a few of the sponsor-named programs, such as United States Steel Hour and Kraft Television Theatre. All of this before her second marriage, the one that would last to the end of his life.

She did continue to do movies over the years—among her last credits is playing Mitch’s mother in both the City Slickers movies—but she slid easily into television almost immediately. Oh, part of that was marrying Steve Allen, from what I can tell. There’s a slightly disturbing story on her Wikipedia page where she describes not wanting to play Cleopatra on a show he was doing and being told he’d divorce her if she didn’t. Which I’m sure was a joke but still. It’s clear that, where he went, so too did she.

I’ve not seen her appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street, one of Steve’s last TV appearances, but it’s a weird casting choice. No offense to either of them, but they’re not exactly the first people you think about when it comes to that show. (Maybe Andre Braugher, whose birthday is today?) Sometimes, it’s clear stunt-casting and you just kind of go along with it. There’s nothing wrong with paying tribute to the classic years of television, after all. I fully support knowing your own history.

Really, this is a lot of what these columns are. We are talking about our history. Jayne Meadows isn’t as flashy as some of the people we’ve covered, but she’s a prominent part of television history. She played herself in Casino, because that’s the kind of person she was and where she fits into pop culture. Honestly, she played herself a lot in her later years—it’s not everyone who would do so in both The Nanny and The Player, let’s be real. It’s also noteworthy that they both wanted her.

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