Kathryn Kates, who appeared as a counterwife in two memorable scenes from “Seinfeld” deficient in baked goods — chocolate babkas and marble rye bread — and racked up countless film credits for nearly 50 years, died at her brother’s home in Lake Worth on Jan. Florida. She was 73.
The cause was lung cancer, said the brother, Josh Kates.
Ms. Kates, who lived in Manhattan, has had roles in dozens of TV shows and movies, including the recent series “Shades of Blue” on NBC, “Friends From College” on Netflix and “The Good Fight” on CBS.
She appeared in five episodes of “Law and Order” – a fixture on the resumes of most New York actors – as Judge Marlene Simmons. She also had a recurring role on Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black, as the mother of Jason Biggs’ character Larry Bloom. And she was cast as Angie DeCarlo, an Italian beauty salon owner, in “The Many Saints of Newark” (2021), the prequel movie to “The Sopranos”.
But it was in two episodes of “Seinfeld” (1990-1998) that she made an indelible impression.
Wearing a yellow apron and New York attitude, Mrs. Kates appeared in season five of “The Dinner Party” as the baker’s clerk who announces to Jerry and Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) that the store’s last cherished chocolate babka had just been sold from them. Instead, Elaine offered a cinnamon babka, calling it a “lesser” babka, to which Jerry objects, intoning, “Cinnamon takes a backseat to no babka.”
The scene includes a memorable coughing fit of Mrs. Kates’ character next to a wall of baked goods and her closing words to a lingering Jerry and Elaine: “Can I get you something else? How about a nice box of ‘scram’?”
The episode also features Jerry’s glorification of another New York bakery mainstay, the black and white cookie, as a sort of model for better race relations. “Look at the cookie!” he explains.
In an interview last year with “This Podcast Is Making Me Thirsty,” a podcast on “Seinfeld,” Ms. Kates recalled getting the role people would recognize her for on the streets of Manhattan for decades.
The entire writing staff, including Mr. Seinfeld and the show’s co-creator Larry David watched as she read her lines and coughed during an audition. She had previously auditioned for other minor roles on “Seinfeld,” but the brass counter-wife was her lucky moment.
Two seasons later, Mrs. Kates, again in her yellow apron, played the part in the episode ‘The Rye’. This time, she tells a crestfallen Jerry that the bakery’s last marble rye loaf has been sold, complicating a plot to restore George to the favor of his future in-laws.
Ms. Kates devoted much of her time to running The Colony Theater in Burbank, California, of which she was a founding member. There she and actress Barbara Beckley were co-general managers from 1975 to 1981. She appeared in numerous Colony productions.
“Kathy was New York through and through,” said Mrs. Beckley. “She has played some wonderful roles with us.” But she added: “She was not a leading lady. She was much more of a young character actress and not a Hollywood type at all.”
Kathryn Jane Kates was born on January 29, 1948 in Queens. Her father, Louis Kates, was an electronics engineer. Her mother, Sylvia (Fagan) Kates, was an actress who appeared on television under the stage name Madelyn Cates in the hospital drama “St. Elsewhere” and the series “Fame” and played the eccentric janitor who married Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) and Leo Bloom. (Gene Wilder) confronted in the 1967 film version of “The Producers.”
Ms. Kates grew up in Great Neck, NY, on Long Island, and graduated from Great Neck North Senior High. She studied acting at New York University.
After graduating in 1971, she moved to Los Angeles in 1974 and turned to theater. Her early television credits included appearances in the 1991 legal drama “Matlock” and other cameo roles in “Rachel Gunn, RN” and “Hudson Street.”
In 1993, she married Joseph Pershes, an executive at a video distribution company. They divorced in 2006. In addition to her brother, she leaves behind a sister, Mallory Kates.
When asked in the podcast interview about appearing on “Seinfeld,” Ms. Kates replied that she was always grateful to have a job. “I’ve enjoyed every job I’ve ever had,” she said.
And as for her babka preference? She had a preference for chocolate.