[4][5][6] Her parents, the Reverend Francis James Meadows Cotter and his wife, the former Ida Miller Taylor, were Episcopal missionaries in Wuchang, Hubei, China, where her three elder siblings were born.

[3] After high school, Meadows sang in the Broadway musical Top Banana before becoming a regular on television in The Bob and Ray Show.

[1] When The Honeymooners became a half-hour situation comedy on CBS, Meadows (who was 6 years younger than Gleason) continued in the role.

[7][1] Meadows was the only member of the Honeymooners cast to earn residual royalties after the "Classic 39" episodes of the show from 1955 to 1956 started airing in reruns.

Her brother Edward, a lawyer, had inserted a clause into her original contract whereby she would be paid if the shows were re-broadcast, thus earning her millions of dollars.

[8] When the "lost" Honeymooners episodes from the variety shows were later released, Joyce Randolph, who played Trixie Norton, received royalty payments.

In total, Meadows earned four Primetime Emmy nominations for her television work, winning one for The Jackie Gleason Show.

[1] She declined all but palliative treatment and died on February 3, 1996, five days before her 74th birthday, after she slipped into a coma at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.