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Wendy “Wendel” Anne Meldrum, actress, screenwriter (born 21 July 1954 in Edmonton, AB; died 27 January 2021). Wendel Meldrum's most compelling quality as an actress was her ability to convey a sort of artless grace; she had a knack for playing blameless characters who have no capacity for cunning.
Career Highlights
Wendel Meldrum began her acting career in the early 1980s. After playing supporting characters in American television movies and guest roles on several long-running and popular television dramatic series and sitcoms (Knots Landing, Punky Brewster and Family Ties, among the more notable), Meldrum was cast as Margaret Callahan on the short-lived but clever sitcom Pursuit of Happiness (1987).
After Pursuit of Happiness's quick demise, Wendel Meldrum went on to play some of her most endearing characters in iconic television series The Wonder Years and Seinfeld. Her feature film work includes the Canadian period drama Beautiful Dreamers (1990) and the science fiction comedy Blast from the Past (1999). In 2005, she wrote and co-starred along with her former husband Mark Humphrey and their son Luke Humphrey in Cruel but Necessary, a comedic drama about a family going through a painfully awkward readjustment after a hasty divorce. Meldrum's bewildered but affectionate performance earned her the outstanding female performance award at the Winnipeg International Film Festival.
In 2008 Meldrum was cast as Anne Blecher in the Winnipeg-based sitcom Less Than Kind. The series, about the patient family of an autocratic driving instructor (played by Maury Chaykin, who passed away during the show's second season on air), became one of the standout domestic hits of that year, earning Meldrum a Canadian Comedy Award for best female performance in a television role in 2009, and a Gemini Award nomination for best individual performance in a comedy program in 2010.
