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Kay Linaker

American actress and screenwriter (1913–2008)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 7, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Mary Katherine Linaker was an American actress and screenwriter who appeared in many B movies during the 1930s and 1940s, most notably Kitty Foyle (1940). Linaker used her married name, Kate Phillips, as a screenwriter, notably for the cult film The Blob (1958). She is credited with coining the name "The Blob" for the movie, which was originally titled The Molten Meteor.

Editorial summary

“Kay Linaker” enters the record as american actress and screenwriter (1913–2008). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Linaker, American and actress can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1940, 1958—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Linaker, American and actress.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Kay Linaker” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Linaker, American and actress provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 7, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1940 and 1958.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Kay Linaker”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Kay Linaker primary sources, Kay Linaker archive and Linaker research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Kay Linaker”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Kay Linaker” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.