Best known as the co-writer of the 1958 horror classic The Blob, Kay Linaker passed away last Friday at the age of 94. Prior to her 1945 marriage, Linaker was also an actress during the 1930s and '40s, appearing alongside Henry Fonda in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) and Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), as well as playing a bit role in The Invisible Woman (1940), the third film in Universal's Invisible Man series. She also starred in eight Charlie Chan pictures, playing a different character in each one.After retiring from acting, she became a screenwriter, working mainly in television (her husband Howard Phillips was an NBC executive). For her contribution to the script for The Blob, one of the biggest box office hits of 1958, she received a mere $150 (she was promised royalties, which never materialized).
In recent years, Linaker continued to work as a teacher of screenwriting, acting and film study at Keene State University, and was in fact one of the oldest college teachers in America. She died in Keene, New Hampshire, where she had been teaching and living near her daughter Katherine.