Jayne Meadows (born Jane Cotter; September 27, 1919 – April 26, 2015) was an American stage, film and television actress, as well as an author and lecturer.

She was nominated for three Emmy Awards during her career and was the elder sister of actress, banker, and memoirist Audrey Meadows as well as the wife of original Tonight Show host Steve Allen.

Meadows was born Jane Cotter in 1919,[1] in Wuchang, Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, the elder daughter of American Episcopal missionary parents, the Rev.

Her most famous movies include: Undercurrent (with Katharine Hepburn), Song of the Thin Man (with William Powell and Myrna Loy), David and Bathsheba (with Gregory Peck, Susan Hayward, and Raymond Massey), Lady in the Lake (with Robert Montgomery and Audrey Totter), and Enchantment (with David Niven and Teresa Wright).

[4] Among her earliest television appearances, Meadows played reporter Helen Brady in a 1953 episode of Suspense opposite Walter Matthau titled "F.O.B.

During the early days of the burgeoning live entertainment scene in Las Vegas, the Allens occasionally worked together as a nightclub act.

Meadows appeared nine times on the series, playing numerous historical characters (including Cleopatra, Marie Antoinette, Catherine the Great, Margaret Sanger, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Florence Nightingale).

Her last public appearance was in August 2009 at the Early TV Memories First-Class Commemorative Stamp Dedication Ceremony.