Background
On May 25, 1914, she was born as Kathryn Irene Rea in Corydon, Iowa to Fred Albertson Rea and Lenore Gertrude Wilson.
On May 25, 1914, she was born as Kathryn Irene Rea in Corydon, Iowa to Fred Albertson Rea and Lenore Gertrude Wilson.
She graduated from high school at the age of 15, earning scholarships to Stephens College, a women"s college in Columbia, Missouri, and later to Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.
Other films included Bridal Grief, Artists and Models and China Passage. She was raised on a farmstead in Missouri. She worked as an accompanist for other students, and performed in Columbia, Des Moines, and Chicago as a singer/pianist, primarily in hotel ballrooms with various touring big bands.
In Des Moines, she and Ronald Reagan modeled together for fashion magazines.
Before making films she worked in Chicago and New York City hotels, musical stage, and radio. She got the lead role in a new musical revue, Two for the Show, in which she introduced a song written to showcase her vocal style, "How High the Moon", which became a popular standard.
Rea obliged. After Reagan was signed for his first film, the contact ended.
Rea was signed with Samuel Goldwyn and appeared in films with several studios under different names, such as Kay Marlowe, Katharine Marlowe, Kay Kimber, Kay Rea, Kea Rea, Kay Rhea, Kathryn Marlow, before landing on Kathryn Marlowe. She quipped that it was "because no one can understand how to pronounce "Rea"".
After leaving Hollywood, she had leads in several stage musicals in New York City and London, and roles in Television dramas. She pioneered a daily women"s television program in Ottumwa, Iowa in the early 1950s.
Rea was famous for a unique piano style, and for having a three+ octave full-voice range up to high East. Marlowe died at the age of 96 in Tampa, Florida after a long period of ill health.