Katharine Gratten Aldridge

 Katharine Gratten Aldridge (July 9, 1917 – January 12, 1995)

Aldridge was an actress and model, best known for playing feisty and imperiled heroines in black-and-white serials during the 1940s. In 1939 she signed a contract with 20th Century Fox, and in the next few years landed a number of minor and largely decorative roles, credited as Katherine Aldridge. The films she made during this period include Shooting High (1940) playing Evelyn Trent, Sailor's Lady (1940) playing Georgine, Down Argentine Way (1940) playing Helen Carson, and Dead Men Tell (1941) playing Laura Thursday. She was among the actresses screen tested for the part of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. After her contract with 20th Century Fox expired in 1941, she was approach by Republic Pictures to star in an upcoming film serial. Her first serial for Republic was Perils of Nyoka (1942), which offered dramatic cliffhanger scenes at the end of each episode. Now credited as Kay Aldridge, she played the character Nyoka Gordon, who confronts a host of villains while seeking her father, who was lost on an expedition in Africa. She retired from acting in 1945. Aldridge was married three times: to Arthur Cameron from 1945 to 1954, to Richard Derby Tucker from 1956 until his death in 1979, and lastly to Harry Nasland until his death in 1988. In her later years she lived in Camden, Maine, and was a locally renowned hostess. Aldridge died of a heart attack on January 12, 1995 in Rockport, Maine. She is interred at Sea View Cemetery in Rockport, Maine.