Biography
Kay Earley Doubleday was born in the northern Caribbean coastal town of Tela, Honduras, where her father was a railroad construction engineer for the Tela Railroad Company, a subsidiary of the United Fruit Company, later to become Chiquita Brands International. It controlled vast territories and transportation networks in Central America and had a monopoly on the banana industry. In 1933, just after Doubleday was born, the company moved its headquarters to New Orleans. Her family moved there in 1936 and she grew up there, appearing in several local theater productions as a child. Upon graduation from high school at the Academy of the Holy Angels in 1951, she moved to New York to pursue acting and soon flew to London, where she auditioned for and was accepted into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. After a year, she graduated and lived in Rome for a short time, returning to New York in 1954, where she soon began taking acting lessons from playwright and actor Michael V. Gazzo, who later gained fame for portraying Frankie "Five Angels" Pentageli in The Godfather Part II (1974). In 1956, she enrolled in the famed Actor's Studio under the tutelage of Lee Strasberg, who also appeared in The Godfather Part II (1974), as mafia kingpin Hyman Roth. There, she met her first husband, actor and writer Clyde Ware. They had a son, but the marriage ended in 1961 and Ware moved to Hollywood, where he began a successful screenwriting career. Doubleday then married again in 1962 to actor Archie Smith. They moved to Seattle and acted together in the Seattle Repertory Theater for several years. Their marriage also produced a son, but tragically, in February 1970, he was killed when thrown from the back seat of the car Smith was driving near Lake Sammamish State Park near Issaquah. Smith was slowing down for traffic and lost control of the vehicle, which skidded off the road. The couple's pain at this loss was eased a bit when Doubleday gave birth to a daughter about a year later. The family moved to Pennsylvania and were involved with the Penn State Theater Department. In the early 1980's, they moved to Denver and were resident actors with the Denver Theater Company. In May 1995, Doubleday died in the arms of her beloved husband Archie Smith.
