Nancy Marchand

With her patrician looks and wavering voice, Marchand has carved a niche for herself portraying upper class doyennes. While still in college, she made her acting debut in a summer stock production of "The Late George Apley." After earning a degree from Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie-Mellon University), she spent a season at the Falmouth Theater on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, before traveling north to Cambridge to join the Brattle Theater for two seasons (1950-52). Marchand squeezed in her New York stage debut in 1951 as the tavern hostess in Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew." She was to spend much of the next forty-plus years appearing in contemporary and classical theater. Marchand won critical praise and an OBIE Award for her performance in Jean Genet's "The Balcony" in 1960. Other noteworthy stage appearances include opposite Estelle Parsons in "And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little" (1971); as Vera Simpson in "Pal Joey" and Ranevskaya in "The Cherry Orchard" (Chicago, 1974); the eldest sister in the acclaimed revival of Paul Osborn's "Morning's at Seven" (1980), the title role in "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You" (1982); several productions of Clifford Odets' "Awake and Sing"; Ann, the mother who was always up for "just another splash" in A R Gurney's "The Cocktail Hour" (1988); and the 1993 revival of Anthony Shaffer's "Black Comedy."