Nina Foch (/fɒʃ/FOSH; born Nina Consuelo Maud Fock; April 20, 1924 – December 5, 2008) was an American actress who later became an instructor. Her career spanned 6 decades, consisting of over 50 feature films and over 100 television credits. She was the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and a National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress. Foch established herself as a dramatic actress in the late 1940s, often playing cool, aloof sophisticates.[1]
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Nina Foch was born Nina Consuelo Maud Fock in 1924[3] in Leiden, South Holland, Netherlands, to American actress and singer Consuelo Flowerton and Dutch classical music conductor Dirk Fock.[4]Her parents divorced when she was a toddler, and she and her mother moved to the United States, settling in New York City.[5]
After signing a contract with Columbia Pictures at age 19, Foch made her feature film debut in the studio's horror pictureThe Return of the Vampire (1943) with Bela Lugosi,[8] subsequently appearing in Columbia's Cry of the Werewolf the next year.[9] This was followed with a role in the biopicA Song to Remember (1945), the drama I Love a Mystery (1945); and a string of film noirs, including Escape in the Fog (1945), in which she starred as a woman who has a premonition of her kidnapping.[10] The same year, she had the titular role in My Name is Julia Ross, a mystery about a woman who, after taking a new job working as a secretary for a family in London, awakens one morning to find herself with a different identity in a remote seaside house in rural Cornwall.[11]
Foch received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as a secretary in the boardroom drama Executive Suite (1954), starring William Holden, Fredric March, and Barbara Stanwyck.[14] The same year Executive Suite was released, Foch married her first husband, actor James Lipton; their marriage spanned five years before ending in divorce in 1959.[15] The same year, she married television writer Dennis de Brito, with whom she gave birth to one son, Dirk.[7]
In Spartacus (1960), starring Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier, she played a woman who chooses gladiators to fight to the death in the ring simply for her entertainment. In 1961, she guest-starred in the NBC series about the family divisions from American Civil War entitled The Americans. In 1963, she appeared on the NBC game show Your First Impression. In 1964, she played the title role in the episode "Maggie, Queen of the Jungle" of Craig Stevens's short-lived CBS drama series, Mr. Broadway. Also in 1964, Foch divorced her second husband, De Brito.[7] Foch was next cast as Eva Frazier in the Outer Limits episode "The Borderland". She appeared in an episode of Gunsmoke as the widowed matriarch of a lawless town, and played in an episode on Combat! titled episode "The Casket". In 1967, Foch married her third husband, Michael Dewell, in 1967.[7]
She was subsequently cast as the first murder victim of the Columbo mystery series starring Peter Falk, appearing in the pilot movie, Prescription: Murder (1968), with Gene Barry as her husband, a homicidal psychiatrist. In the early 1970s, she guest-starred on ABC's That Girl in the fifth-season episode, That Script, and NBC's The Brian Keith Show. In 1975, she appeared in the film Mahogany, starring Diana Ross, and subsequently supporting roles in the horror film Jennifer and the Walt Disney supernatural television film Child of Glass (both released in 1978). In 1980, Foch was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress for her guest role as Mrs. Pope on the Lou Grant episode "Hollywood".[17]
1981–2008: Later work and teaching
Later in her career, Foch appeared in War and Remembrance (1988) as the Comtesse de Chambrun, an American collaborationist in WWII Paris who employs Jane Seymour's character, Natalie Henry, as a librarian and suggests that the best place for her and her uncle would be the inaptly named "Paradise Ghetto". She also appeared as Frannie Halcyon in the TV miniseries Tales of the City (1993). The same year, Foch divorced her third husband, Michael Dewell.[7] Another notable television role was as the Overseer Commander (or "Kleezantzun") in the first of the Alien Nation TV movies, Alien Nation: Dark Horizon (1994).
Foch also continued to work as an instructor at USC during this period, and also worked as an independent script-breakdown consultant for many Hollywood directors.[7]
Foch has stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 6300 Hollywood Boulevard, and 7000 Hollywood Boulevard.[20] Those who studied with her include Rod Stewart, Julie Andrews,[21]John Ritter (with whom she co-starred in Skin Deep), Amy Heckerling, Randal Kleiser, Edward Zwick, Ron Underwood,[22] and Marshall Herskovitz.[16] Andrews recalled of Foch: "She was a tough teacher, but in the best sense. She was always brutally frank, she demanded one go the extra mile, and she wouldn't allow one to get away with a thing."[21] Kleiser, who studied with Foch in 1965, reflected: "She was able to take the things she learned working with directors like Vincente Minnelli and Stanley Kubrick and combine them with her own style."[16]
Foch was reportedly the inspiration for the character Nina, a washed-up actress teaching acting classes from a seedy motel, in Rufus Butler Seder's film Screamplay. Seder had studied under Foch years earlier. [23]
Aaker, Everett (2013). George Raft: The Films. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN978-0-7864-6646-7.
Blottner, Gene (2015). Columbia Noir: A Complete Filmography, 1940–1962. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN978-0-7864-7014-3.
Keenan, Richard C. (2007). The Films of Robert Wise. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. ISBN978-0-8108-6663-8.
Pitts, Michael R. (2014). Columbia Pictures Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Films, 1928–1982. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN978-0-7864-5766-3.
Wilson, Scott (2016). Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons (3rded.). Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN978-1-4766-2599-7.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Nina_Foch, and is written by contributors.
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