Nan Martin, a veteran stage, television and film actress whose Broadway credits include “J.B.” and “Under the Yum-Yum Tree” and who played Ali McGraw’s snooty mother in the film “Goodbye, Columbus,” died on Thursday at her home in Malibu, Calif. She was 82.
The cause was complications of emphysema, said her son Casey Dolan.
Ms. Martin gained wide exposure in the late 1990s in the recurring role of the mean-spirited boss, Mrs. Louder, in the sitcom “The Drew Carey Show.”
She made her Broadway debut in 1950 in a short-lived play, “A Story for a Sunday Evening.” She went on to appear in numerous television films and television series, including “The Twilight Zone” and “The Untouchables,” and became a regular in Joseph Papp’s
Shakespeare in the Park productions in the early 1960s.
She earned a
Tony nomination for her performance as the wife, Sarah, in Archibald MacLeish’s verse drama “J.B.” (1958), directed by
Elia Kazan. In “Under the Yum-Yum Tree” (1960), she played Irene Wilson, the divorcée who briefly attracts the roving eye of
Gig Young.
In 1976 she returned to Broadway as Mrs. Buchanan in
Tennessee Williams’s “Eccentricities of a Nightingale,” a reconceived version of his play “Summer and Smoke.” In his review for The New York Times,
Clive Barnes wrote that she “glitters like a bejeweled snake as the awful mother.”
Nan Clow Martin was born in Decatur, Ill., on July 15, 1927, and grew up in Santa Monica, Calif. After acting in a student production at the
University of California, Los Angeles, which she attended part time, and modeling for the fashion designer Adrian, she moved to New York.
Besides “The Drew Carey Show,” her many television credits include “
NYPD Blue” and “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” and she appeared in the films “Toys in the Attic,” “For Love of Ivy” and “Shallow Hal,” among others.
Mothers were something of a specialty for Ms. Martin on television and in film, most memorably her role as Mrs. Ben Patimkin, who douses Richard Benjamin with cold contempt in “Goodbye, Columbus” (1969). She also played Freddy Krueger’s mother in “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors” (1987).
Later in her career, Ms. Martin acted with the South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, Calif. Her performance as Miss Helen in
Athol Fugard’s three-character “Road to Mecca” in 1989 led to an engagement in the same role opposite the playwright at the
Kennedy Center in Washington.
Ms. Martin’s first marriage, to the screen composer Robert Emmett Dolan, ended in divorce. In addition to her son Casey, of Los Angeles, she is survived by her husband, Harry Gesner; another son, Zen Gesner of Malibu; and three grandsons.
Nan Martin, Actress From ‘Drew Carey Show,’ Dies at 82 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com
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