The Star Next Door

No sooner did I ring the doorbell at the Cape May home of Kate McCauley Hathaway, than I was beckoned to enter with her not-too-distant shout of “Come on in!” Stepping into her sunny living room I received my first warm and enthusiastic greeting from Sandy, her and her husband Jerry’s 12-year old French bulldog.

“Sorry for the mess,” Kate apologized, turning toward me as she finished organizing rows of freshly cleaned glassware on the dining room table. “I hosted a cast party yesterday and am just cleaning up.” The party was thrown for her fellow cast members and stage crew to celebrate the final week of Cape May Stage’s wildly successful stage comedy, Sylvia, in which Kate portrayed a less-than-thrilled wife who is burdened with an overactive dog while looking for independence.

Even while tidying up, her eagerness to be hostess was apparent as she offered me my choice of several cool summer beverages. She invited me to make myself at home and quickly planted herself cross-legged on the sofa, as a child would if anxious to hear a story. “Okay, shoot!” she said.

As I began to pose our first topic of discussion, a loud steady thumping interrupted us from an unbalanced washing machine in another section of the house. “Oh, hold on,” she said as she sprang to her feet and hurried from the room. “This happens all the time!” she shouted to me through the house, “It’s the robe I wear for tonight’s show! The glamorous life of an actress, right?”

Left alone in the living room, noticing framed family snapshots, portraits of smiling grandchildren and the many souvenirs of a life fully lived, I realized that her rhetorical question from the laundry room really did have an answer. This was indeed the life of an accomplished actress, one who excelled in her craft while successfully nurturing a loving family—a delicate balance of pursuing dreams and fulfilling obligations that few are able to manage. It was evident to me in that moment the amazing lady Kate McCauley Hathaway truly is.

One of four children born in Philadelphia to Roz and Joe McCauley, Kate addresses her age with a politely coy tone, simply disclosing that she was born in the 20th century. “Someone else just wrote a piece on me,” Kate said as she laughed, “They called back after the interview and said their editor wanted to know how old I was. I told them to tell their editor to go jump in a lake. My friend Marlena Lustik once told me to just tell reporters that I’m 29 with a tail.”

Show business was ingrained in Kate from early childhood. From 1941 through 1968, her father Joe was Philadelphia’s most celebrated radio personality. Known as the Morning Mayor on WIP-AM, Joe’s Big Band sounds and relaxed manner resonated with listeners in the Delaware Valley, for whom he often emceed special events or gave a boost of support to a worthy cause by making a guest appearance. Frequent celebrity callers to Joe’s show included Frank Sinatra and the mother of Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey. In 1999, Joe was inducted into the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia’s Hall of Fame.

“My parents were very social and always hosted parties,” Kate said, recalling her earliest memories of show business. “At three years old I loved to get in front of people, and would beg my mother to let me sing for friends who came over. My parents were very friendly with Ed McMahon and his family. Ed was my father’s summer vacation replacement on WIP in the 50s. I even performed with Ed when I was four years old.” She added about the future Tonight Show co-host, “He’d feed me questions on the air and I’d deliver the punch lines.”

With her parents’ careers and friendships setting the stage, the acting bug bit Kate while summering in Cape May when she was six years old. “One summer, someone told my mother that Cape May Playhouse was looking for a little girl to be in their production of South Pacific,” Kate said. “When I heard this, I rode my own bicycle down there, went in and said, ‘I hear you need a little girl for South Pacific.’” Artistic Director Paul Barry, who later founded the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, had Kate take the stage and sing a song. With the response, “Okay, let’s talk to your mom,” he cast her on the spot.

“And here’s a great Cape May story for you,” Kate added recalling her rehearsal process for South Pacific. “The song I had to sing was ‘Dites Moi,’ which is in French. My mother’s friend, here in town, was Betty Brown, a widow with 10 children who lived on Windsor Avenue and was a French teacher. She taught me how to sing the song. I loved playing that part and I never wanted it to end. Each summer I’d go directly to Mr. Barry and ask if he had any roles for me. I was my own agent! I later did Showboat there and I was supposed to be in a production of The Rose Tattoo until my mother learned that I would appear on stage wearing only a slip in one scene and said, ‘You’re not doing that one.’”

Kate’s parents hadn’t always summered in Cape May. “We always stayed in Wildwood Crest in the summer because my mother liked the large beaches,” Kate said. “One year, a friend of my brother’s was sailing at the Corinthian Yacht Club and we all came over to see him sail and my mother fell in love with Cape May. The following summer we rented a house here on Congress Street. In fact, I learned to swim in the Congress Hall pool.”

Her parents’ love for Cape May soon led to their purchase of a summer home on Columbia Avenue—a home which Kate’s brother Joe still owns to this day. “It may be his house now,” Kate said of her childhood retreat, “but I walk in and all those wonderful memories come back to me. That’s what Cape May is all about to me. It’s about family.”

Kate continued pursuing theater after her days at Cape May Playhouse, and even landed the role of Nellie in yet another production of South Pacific in high school. It was during this production that she first met Jerry Hathaway, a chorus boy almost two years her junior. Although a huge age gap for teenagers, it was bridged the following year when the two worked closely on a choreographed dance number in their school’s production of Hello, Dolly! A friendship was born that would last for 10 years.

Kate attended La Salle University, having received a musical theater scholarship. She studied English with a special concentration in theater. Jerry also attended La Salle, and the two remained close friends. After college, Jerry went on to study law at The University of Pittsburgh. Kate married briefly and gave birth to her eldest son Michael, who now works as a writer and stay-at-home father.

It was during this period that she credits her role of Sally Bowles in a La Salle production of Cabaret as the turning point in her acting craft. “Up to that point, I was known as the little girl with a belting voice,” Kate said of tackling a role that would become one of musical theater’s most iconic characters. “But I never felt confident as an actress. It was a challenge. I had a director who gave me the confidence as an actor and not just a singer. He would tell me to go and read about Berlin in 1929, and to realize where this character came from. That role was my artistic turning point.” Validating Kate’s confidence in her performance—which followed the release of the 1972 film version—was a review from The Philadelphia Inquirer which read: “Kate McCauley rips into the title song of Cabaret as if she had never heard of Liza Minnelli.”

“When Jerry finished law school and returned to Philadelphia, I was separated from my husband and performing at La Salle’s music theater,” Kate said, “Jerry came to see one of the shows and we reconnected. The cutest thing is that when we finally got together, all our friends told us ‘we knew all along you two were really in love.’” And so they had been. In 1980, Kate and Jerry married and soon moved to New York City with Michael.

In 1982, Kate gave birth to their daughter Anne, now an Academy Award-winning actress who has starred in such films as The Devil Wears Prada, Brokeback Mountain, and Interstellar. Their youngest son Thomas was born in 1987, and he now works in wine and spirits sales.

“Being a working actor while raising children was a challenge,” Kate said. “I wasn’t making the kind of money where I could have a nanny take care of the kids. We had to find ways of working it out. After Tommy was born we moved to the suburbs, and I decided I’d have to hang up my tap shoes and stop acting for a while.”

As with any true artist dedicated to her craft, it didn’t take long for Kate’s determination to find a creative outlet that was conducive to motherhood. “I started a children’s theater troupe in Brooklyn,” Kate said. “It was called Families First Players. I wrote the scripts, we’d rehearse, I’d encourage the children to use their imagination, we’d rehearse again for months and then we’d put on a production. My life has always been about loving children and loving theater. This was a good way to find a healthy and productive outlet.”

After three years of directing her children’s theater troupe, Michael and Anne were of an age that allowed Kate to once again pursue acting jobs that were favorable to family life. “Jerry was so supportive and many times would take care of the kids,” Kate recalls. “One summer I was in Pennsylvania doing a production of Evita and Michael and Annie were with me the whole time. Most of the time they were sitting in the audience watching the show.”

It’s quite possible that Kate’s role as a mother resulted in what Cape May Stage’s artistic director Roy Steinberg cites as one of her finest acting achievements. “My favorite role that she played,” Roy said, “was in Other Desert Cities because you saw the steel of a mother protecting her child, the vulnerability and a sense of humor that was such a delight. Kate is always searching for the truth, and brings something unique to every part.”

Kate clearly recognizes the protective parental traits she shared with her character Polly in Other Desert Cities. It’s a trait that at times has to remain sharpened when being the mother of a highly recognizable family. “Especially when Annie is with us,” Kate said, discussing her daughter’s admiring fans. “We do get people who want to come up and share their enthusiasm about what she does, but at this point, we let her handle it. She’s such a pro at it. In Cape May it’s virtually impossible for her to be walking around. We belong to different clubs where our friends have seen her growing up and if it looks like someone is getting too interested, friends will tell the person to leave her alone. Our Cape May friends are very protective of our privacy. Anne Hathaway is a persona. Annie Hathaway of Cape May is here for some down time and needs to enjoy that, especially now that she has kids.”

Kate is certainly no stranger to admiration herself. “It just happened to me in the North Cape May Acme!” Kate said, “Some guy recognized me from Sylvia and spent five minutes complimenting me and the cast. It was sweet—I love that.”  

Kate’s enthusiasm for challenging roles hasn’t died since the days of learning to sing in French. Asked if there is still a dream role she’d like to play, she was quick to name one of dramatic theater’s most monumental characters. “I’d love to play Mary Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey Into Night. I grew up Irish-American and simply love O’Neill,” Kate said. “In London I saw the ultimate production of it with Constance Cummings and thought, ‘what a role.’ In terms of an acting challenge, you have this soft, sweet woman turn into this raging monster because of her addiction.”

In addition to Kate’s decades of stage experience, her role as a Broadway producer makes her one of the greatest assets to the board of directors of Cape May Stage, on which she has served as a trustee since 2015. Kate was a producer of Holland Taylor’s 2013 Broadway play Ann, a two-act play about Texas Governor Ann Richards, as well as an investing producer of Broadway’s Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. “I think my years of being a theater professional carries some weight with my fellow board members,” Kate said. “I can often advocate for many of the works Roy wants to do.”

As for her broader vision for the town’s arts and culture beyond Cape May Stage, Kate’s optimism points toward a new horizon of possibilities. “I think the town’s two professional theater companies are serving it well,” Kate said of Cape May Stage and East Lynne Theater Company. “We have to do more marketing on social media, we need to reach out to the millennials, and we’ve even implemented packages and marketing at Cape May Stage to attract them to the theater. I’d also like to see Cape May become a theater destination where we could have a Cape May Theater Festival—Shakespeare Shakespeare, Victorian, contemporary, musical—you name it. It would have to be a collaborative effort among the theater companies, but it’s a vision I have that would elevate Cape May’s reputation as an arts town.”

Even with visions of artistic excellence for the community and dreams of tackling the complexity of Eugene O’Neill’s Mary Tyrone, it was clear that Kate’s happiness is found at home and with her family. “Cape May is my happy place. Nowadays I take on a role simply because I enjoy doing it. I’m enjoying time with my husband and can act without having to travel. That’s why Cape May is so perfect for me. I get to perform, I make some money, and get I recognized in the Acme!”