Meredith Lynn MacRae was born on May 30, 1944, in Houston, Texas. She was born on a military base where her father was stationed.
Meredith was bitten by the show business bug at an early age. Her father, Gordon MacRae was a singer and movie idol of the 1950s (Roger & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! (1955) and Carousel (1956)), and her mother, Sheila MacRae, is an actress/comedienne and author, who is probably best known as Alice Kramden (1966-1970), during the 2nd incarnation of Jackie Gleason’s The Jackie Gleason Show (1966) (aka “The Honeymooners”).
At the age of eight, Meredith started her own acting career and appeared in the film By the Light of the Silvery Moon (1953), which starred her father.
She attended UCLA and obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. In 1964, she married Richard Berger, former president of MGM. They divorced four years later.
Meredith went on to starring roles in two of television’s heyday family sitcoms: Petticoat Junction (1963) and My Three Sons (1960). She also guest starred in many other television shows including: Fantasy Island (1977), Magnum, P.I. (1980), The Rockford Files (1974), and Webster (1983) (the highest rated episode ever). She also appeared in several movies and had a brief singing career.
In 1969, Meredith married actor Greg Mullavey (Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976) and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1973). They had one daughter, Allison, born in 1974. Greg and Meredith divorced in 1992 but remained friends.
In 1995, Meredith married Philip Neal, Chairman and CEO of Avery-Dennison.
In 1999, she was diagnosed with cancer. In 2000, due to complications from multiple surgeries and allergic reactions to medications (which caused her brain to swell), Meredith Lynn MacRae departed this life.
