Kate Phillips Dies

Kate Phillips, who played mostly supporting roles on Broadway and in more than 50 films in the 1930s and ’40s and who later was a co-writer of the 1958 horror film “The Blob,” died on April 18 in Keene, N.H. She was 94.

The death was confirmed by Lawrence Benaquist, chairman of film studies at Keene State College. Mrs. Phillips, known during her acting career as Kay Linaker, taught at the college from 1980 until two years ago.

In 1956, while working with Theodore Simonson on the script for a movie that was supposed to be called “The Molten Meteor,” Mrs. Phillips referred to the giant jellylike creature from another planet that had plopped into a field outside of a small town as “the blob.” Overhearing her, the producers changed the name of what became something of a cult classic.

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Her husband died before her. She is survived by a son, Bill, of El Cerrito, Calif.; a daughter, Regina Paquette of Keene; and four grandchildren.

In July 2003, Mrs. Phillips traveled to Phoenixville, Pa., to celebrate the town’s annual Blob Fest. As always, hundreds of B-movie fans raced out of the Colonial Theater, re-enacting the panic caused by a gelatinous creature in a scene filmed there almost five decades ago.

Rest In Peace, Kate.

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