Catherine Lee Lewis was an American actress on radio, film, and television. She is remembered best for numerous radio appearances but also noted for making a number of film and television appearances in the last decade of her life.
Career
According to Ron Lackmann's The Encyclopedia of American Radio, Lewis moved from Spokane, Washington to Chicago and found work on The First Nighter Program. Other accounts say she first hoped to make it as a singer. Eventually, Lewis moved to Hollywood, and performed at Pasadena Playhouse.
Radio
She would be most identified as the sensibly droll secretary Jane Stacy rooming with scatterbrained Irma Peterson in the 1947–54 radio and television comedyMy Friend Irma. In recognition of her work as Jane Stacy, she received the Ideal Secretary Award from the Executive Secretaries Club in 1948. She would play Jane Stacy until 1953, taking some time off from September 1948 and through the rest of the season due to overwork. She appeared on Sam Spade and I Love a Mystery She worked with and publicly assessed the radio performances of some of the greatest screen talents of the day, including Gregory Peck, Joan Crawford, Joseph Cotten, June Havoc, and Humphrey Bogart.
Lewis met actor Elliott Lewis when they recorded at The Woodbury Playhouse on November 6, 1940. On April 30, 1943, while Elliott was on leave from the Army, they married at Chapman Park Hotel in Los Angeles. Elliott's uncle Eddie Raiden was best man. Together, the couple worked on such old time radio classics as Voyage of the Scarlet Queen and Suspense. They earned a combined income of $90,000 per year. Both Lewises were staples of vintage American radio in numerous, genre-spanning works in comedy and drama, especially their co-creation of the anthology series On Stage. Together they wrote an episode of Suspense titled "The Thirteenth Sound" that aired in 1947 and an episode of Twelve Players titled "Checkerboard" that aired in 1948. The Lewises separated on their fourteenth anniversary, and Lewis filed for divorce, on the grounds of mental cruelty. The divorce was granted on April 16, 1958.
Films and television
Most of her filmwork in the 1940s was in uncredited bit parts. She recreated her My Friend Irma role on television for the show's first two seasons, but, overworked and tired of the role, left the show in 1953. She had a supporting role in The Party Crashers, a film now noted as the final screen appearances of troubled legend Frances Farmer and former child starBobby Driscoll. That same year, she and Elliott Lewis divorced, putting an end to their image as "Mr. and Mrs. Radio." A year later, she starred as half the title of a short-lived bid to bring another radio show, Fibber McGee and Molly, to television, with Bob Sweeney as Fibber to Lewis's Molly. The show initially had mixed reviews, but it was canceled during its first season. In 1961, Lewis received positive notice for her supporting role in the movie The Devil at 4 O'Clock. She began a recurring role as Deirdre on the television hit Hazel. Lewis played a widow courted by two muleskinners in the 1964 episode "Graydon's Charge" of the syndicated series Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews.
Personal life
Lewis was an avid interior decorator. She and Marie Wilson became close during the run of My Friend Irma. She called Marie "Cookie" or "Cook" for short.
Death
Lewis died of cancer on November 20, 1968, in Hollywood. She was survived by her mother and a sister.
