If ever an actress seemed to have all the tools for stardom, it was Nancy Coleman. Her stage training, natural beauty and sincerity should have fortified her position as a top Warner Bros. star. During her brief period at Warners she proved herself a formidable dramatic actress whether playing the fragile, spurned girlfriend of Ronald Reagan in King’s Row, the high-strung mistress of commandant Helmut Dantine in Edge of Darkness or the most ingenuous of The Gay Sisters.
Unlike her often neurotic screen incarnations, the real Nancy Coleman was a self-assured and strong-willed professional who gained the respect of both directors and her fellow actors. And while she never attained peak status, the studio’s belief in Nancy was evident by the fact that she was only cast in “A” pictures. At the height of her popularity she opted to marry Whitney Bolton, Warners’ head of publicity. It was a decision that brought her much personal happiness, but professional antagonism from the top brass at Warners. She was released from her contract, and though she continued to work, her screen career never regained its momentum.
Ironically, Nancy originally had no interest in becoming a film star. Her first love was the stage, and achieving success on Broadway was her original ambition. Nancy’s interest in the arts can be traced back to her parents, both of whom had careers in writing and music. Her father, Charles Coleman, worked for The Everett Daily Herald, a highly respected publication. He began as a reporter but eventually took over as editor of the newspaper. It was during his early days as a reporter that he met Grace Sharplass, a handsome young woman who covered the paper’s society beat. Grace had originally started out as a violinist, but abandoned her musical career for journalism. After a reasonable courtship, the two married.
On December 30, 1912, the couple welcomed their first child, Nancy. Even as a girl, Nancy displayed a spirited streak and was determined in her plans. A second daughter, Barbara, was born in April, 1916. Both sisters got along well despite their different personalities. Barbara had a sweet disposition but lacked Nancy’s assertiveness and could therefore be easily manipulated by her parents, a character flaw which would later cause her much unhappiness.
From an early age, Nancy showed an interest in learning and became an avid reader, a passion that she enjoyed for the rest of her life. Her love of reading also helped her get her first taste of being in the spotlight. “In third grade I was the little girl who read the story on a Friday afternoon to the class,” she said.
Nancy’s love of storytelling eventually took a natural turn to a fascination with the theater. As a perk of his job, Charles would often receive free theater tickets. Although he had no interest in attending any of the performances, Grace would often take the passes, asking Nancy to accompany her. Nancy was enthralled by the plays she saw and the rich performances of such acting troupes as the distinguished Moroni Olsen Players. “Seeing them was my theater education,” Nancy recalled. “They did good plays—a lot of J.M. Barrie. I remember Dear Brutus. That made a great impression on me.” The memories of those performances took on a deeper meaning when Nancy and Olsen became friends while working together in Dangerously They Live at Warners.
Nancy Coleman’s fragile screen portrayals were a sharp contrast to her strong-willed offscreen persona.
From that point on, Nancy became intent on pursuing a career in the theater. In 1930 attended the University of Washington in Seattle. Though the school had an excellent reputation, its one drawback was that students were not allowed to major in drama. Instead, Nancy sought a degree in English literature while including several drama classes in her curriculum. The drama department was headed by Glenn Hughes, who later wrote several scholarly books about the theater.
An apt pupil, Nancy landed important roles in several of the school’s productions while continuing to hone her craft. One of her fellow classmates was Frances Farmer, a talented actress who was a year younger than Nancy. “She was very beautiful and I was jealous because she got the parts I wanted,” recalled Nancy. Today Farmer is primarily remembered for her struggle with mental illness, which was chronicled quite graphically in the 1982 film Frances.
College proved to be a happy and memorable period for Nancy. In addition to her theatrical ventures, she became a sorority member of Kappa Alpha Theta. By the time she graduated, Nancy had developed into a talented actress as well as a striking young woman. A titian-haired beauty, Nancy was also quite statuesque at five feet, seven inches. Although she felt both her height and her hair color could be barriers to landing ingenue roles, she was secure in her abilities. “I had a great belief in myself. I thought I was good and I still do. I had a very youthful face, but ingenues were not supposed to be tall in the theater. I developed into a character ingenue in the beginning, not a straight ingenue,” she said.
The Depression was still in full swing in 1934 when Nancy graduated from college. Her family was naturally concerned that during such difficult times, landing work as an actress would be a struggle. Nancy half-heartedly agreed to a back-up plan of attending teacher’s college—provided she could go to New York. With her parents’ approval, she headed east upon her acceptance to Columbia University’s graduate school.
“My father was against my being an actress,” Nancy explained. “He thought it was a hard life for a woman. So I went to teacher’s college and studied to be a liberal arts teacher. I was getting my master’s, but I realized I wasn’t going to be a teacher.”
While at Columbia, Nancy met a handsome young man, and within a matter of weeks they were engaged. After some careful soul-searching, Nancy realized that she didn’t really love him and instead looked upon him as an escape from her present arrangement. There was no question that she was also still determined to pursue her theatrical ambitions, and marriage at this time was out of the question. She broke the engagement and instead made plans to move to San Francisco, a mecca for aspiring actors seeking work in radio programs. Nancy set a lofty goal for herself: She would spend two years in San Francisco and land a radio job that would provide her with both a reasonable income and solid experience before returning to New York.
Nancy made the lengthy trip from New York to California with her mother and sister. At the time, Barbara was engaged, but Nancy’s mother disapproved and forced her younger daughter to move to San Francisco. “My mother was wrong for doing that,” criticized Nancy. “My sister couldn’t say no to my mother, and this decision ruined her life. She ended up marrying a man who was all wrong for her. He was a good businessman, but he wasn’t a nice person.”
The Coleman women arrived in San Francisco in the spring of 1935. Nancy has vivid memories of her first glimpse of the Bay City. “It was a lovely San Francisco day. The fog was rolling in. We drove into the middle of San Francisco and went to a realtor’s office. Mother said ‘I’ll see what I can find for us.’ The realtor took us to this place which had a huge living room, a nice alcove, a dining room and a kitchen. The rent was something we could afford. As soon as we settled in and started exploring, we realized we were in the red light district.”
Although they stuck it out in the apartment for a while, within months they moved to a more respectable neighborhood in nearby Berkeley. Barbara began going to business college. With both her mother and sister living with her, Nancy knew she’d need to find any kind of work until she got an acting job She applied for a sales position at the Emporium, a major department store on Market Street, but was hired as an elevator operator for $11 a week. “It wasn’t electric, but manual. They taught me how to run it, but I was not a very good elevator operator,” she said.
The grueling job kept Nancy on her feet all day, and she often looked forward to even the slightest chance to rest. Using her own cunning, Nancy devised ways of taking breaks. “I discovered that if you left the elevator on the upper floor, you’d lock it and you couldn’t go. So I’d ring a bell and say I’m stuck and I’d get to rest a while.”
One of the accessories Nancy always wore to dress up her elevator operator’s outfit—her Kappa Alpha Theta sorority pin—proved to be a lucky charm. “A woman came on the elevator one day and asked me, ‘What are you doing here? Are you going to stay here?’ I told her I wanted to be an actress. She then said, ‘I have a friend who’s a casting director at NBC. I think I can get you an audition. The rest is up to you.’ I later found out that the woman took an interest in me because I was wearing my sorority pin. She saw I was a Kappa Alpha Theta and asked me about it. That’s how that started. I got the audition very quickly.”
Her audition was a success and she was hired for a radio soap opera. She continued to work regularly at the station, which was owned by NBC, for the next two years. She was able to afford a nicely furnished apartment on Nob Hill, which she shared with her mother.
By the time her two-year limit was up, Nancy had managed to save $1,000, which would easily pay for her passage back to New York. She would also have enough money left over to support herself for a few months while looking for work.
For her trip back east, Nancy’s adventurous spirit got the better of her. Rather than traveling by bus or train, she bought a first-class ticket on the Panama Pacific and literally came to New York by way of the Panama Canal. The cruise also included a stopover in Acapulco, where Nancy enjoyed the lush beaches.
When she arrived in New York, Nancy headed to the home of the Sinceheimer family, who were friends of her mother’s. She stayed with the Sinceheimers for a short time before moving into the Barbizon Plaza on West 57th St. The fringe benefit to living at the Barbizon was a free continental breakfast delivered to every tenant each morning.
Nancy only stayed at the Barbizon for three months. A letter of introduction that she had received from a friend in San Francisco eventually became Nancy’s passport to the famed Rehearsal Club, a theatrical boarding house for aspiring actresses, dancers and singers that was the inspiration for the Footlights Club depicted in the play and film Stage Door. Nancy showed the letter to an actress whom the writer of the letter was acquainted with, and she arranged for Nancy to move into the club. For $11 a week Nancy shared a spacious room, private bathroom and large closet with two other boarders. The rent also included lunch and dinner. Occupants had to abide by two ironclad rules: They couldn’t stay out past 1 a.m., and no men were allowed beyond the parlor. Breaking either meant immediate eviction.
Staying at the Rehearsal Club proved to be a fun-filled and educational experience for Nancy. “I learned how to dress and how to apply for work,” she recalled. “In the beginning, I’d apply for a job at 9:00 in the morning. I soon realized that it was 11:00 before anyone showed up. I’d try to see agents and producers. If you knew them, you would try to see the better ones. If you didn’t, you’d try to make up some lie to get in to see them.”
Nancy remembered going on lots of auditions, often without success. Her tall, slender figure led to some modeling jobs, which paid her expenses until an acting offer came along.
Nancy’s breakthrough role came through her friend Nancy Kelly. Kelly had been appearing at the Plymouth Theater in Susan and God as the shy, neglected daughter of a shallow socialite played by Gertrude Lawrence. Kelly’s performance in the Rachel Crothers’ play was spotted by a 20th Century–Fox talent scout. When Kelly announced that she had accepted an offer from Fox and would be leaving the play, pandemonium ensued.
“They had to look for a replacement and they had great trouble finding someone that Ms. Lawrence approved of, that Ms. Crothers approved of, that [the producer] John Golden approved of and that all the people in charge approved of,” Nancy said.
Convinced that she had the necessary qualities the role called for, Nancy was determined to get it. “I remember the agent who saw me. His name was Richard Pittney. I didn’t know how you went about getting the part, but I knew I could do it. I walked into his office one rainy day and read the lines. I guess he liked it,” she said.
The reading for Pittney was only the first of many auditions for Nancy. She then had to play the scenes over for Lawrence, Crothers and Golden. All were pleased with Nancy’s audition and she was asked to be ready in one week.
Crothers worked with Nancy nonstop for the entire week, and by the following Saturday, when she made her debut, she was letter perfect. Nancy’s salary at the time was a meager $40 per week. She stayed with the play during its New York run, commuting between the Rehearsal Club on 52nd St. and the Plymouth Theater on 45th St.
Lawrence, who could sometimes be difficult and thought nothing of upstaging her co-stars, was quite taken with Nancy. When both women appeared together on a radio broadcast during the run of the play, Lawrence introduced her young co-star as “Nancy Coleman, who plays my daughter in Susan and God. One of these days she will be one of our most important actresses in the theater.”
When Susan and God ended its Broadway run, Nancy went on tour with the play. At the end of the tour she returned to New York, where once again finding acting jobs proved difficult. Things took an upward turn when CBS agreed to become Nancy’s agent. Sarah Lauritz of CBS took an interest in Nancy. She thought that Nancy’s red hair, wholesome look and sincere acting ability could be parlayed into a successful motion picture career. Lauritz arranged several tests for Nancy, including one for David O. Selznick’s production company and another at Astoria on Long Island for Paramount. The latter test turned out to be a disaster.
“It wasn’t even an acting test,” complained Nancy. “They just photographed me and I wasn’t photographed well. I decided very quickly that if I was going to do any more tests, they would not be in New York. So I refused several for New York.”
According to Nancy, Lauritz noticed that her agreement with CBS was “one of the weirdest contracts ever promulgated.” It essentially allowed Nancy to go out to Hollywood and collect a salary for doing tests. Nancy headed to the West Coast and tested for several roles, including two at Warner Bros.—the female lead in They Died with Their Boots On (1941), an epic on the life of General George Custer, starring Errol Flynn; and a smaller but meatier role as the mentally unstable daughter of an unscrupulous doctor in King’s Row (1942). Of the two, Nancy was far more interested in the latter, which she felt would provide her with strong scenes that would make an impression on audiences.
“I was not necessarily interested in star parts. I really wanted just to work and to work in really good things. I liked what Warners was doing at that time,” she said.
Although all of Nancy’s acting experience had been either on stage or radio, she was undaunted by the camera and gave a poised and polished performance in her King’s Row test. “I was a little more intelligent than some of the other girls who came out for parts. I seemed to know what to do. I had instincts for how to do things like walk or turn in front of the camera. I got the King’s Row role. The only thing I had to do was fix my two front teeth, which were large. I didn’t get them capped at that point, but just had things pasted on the front of them.”
Her acceptance for the role of Louise Gordon in King’s Row led to a seven-year contract with Warner Bros., which also set up a stylish apartment in Los Angeles for Nancy and her mother.
King’s Row was being earmarked as Warners’ most prestigious production of 1941, and the studio was pulling out all the stops. It boasted a superlative cast, headed by Robert Cummings, Ann Sheridan, and Claude Rains, and was being helmed by esteemed director Sam Wood. Erich Wolfgang Korngold composed a haunting score that evoked the desperation and desires of the townspeople. Celebrated cinematographer James Wong Howe brilliantly photographed each scene, and screenwriter Casey Robinson penned a tight screenplay that compressed the dramatic elements of Henry Bellamann’s sprawling bestseller.
King’s Row, which could be viewed as a precursor to Peyton Place, was a searing look at the underbelly of turn-of-the-century Middle America, behind whose doors lurked sadism, madness and despair. The center of the story is Parris Mitchell (Cummings), who grows from innocent youth to idealistic doctor over the course of the film’s 127 minutes. The characters he encounters all have an influence on his life: his best friend, roguish Drake McHugh (Ronald Reagan); Drake’s girlfriend and eventual wife, Randy (Sheridan); his devoted grandmother (Maria Ouspenskaya); his mentor, Dr. Tower (Rains); Cassie Tower, the doctor’s mentally unbalanced daughter (Betty Field); Dr. Gordon (Charles Coburn), who willfully performs operations without the use of chloroform; and his daughter Louise, who rejects Drake because her parents disapprove of him. A climactic scene involves Gordon’s unnecessary amputation of Drake’s legs after he has a mining accident. The moment when Drake wakes up after surgery and discovers what has happened gave Reagan the chance to mutter the immortal line “Where’s the rest of me?”
As Louise, whose knowledge of her father’s butchering methods leads to her confinement and mental collapse, Nancy had several highly emotional screen moments, which she performed with relish. In a pivotal scene in which Louise threatens to reveal her father’s secret about his botched operation on Drake, Coburn was required to slap Nancy. Though the scene lasted only a few moments on screen, it was a long and painful one to film.
“I was a wreck from it,” recalled Nancy. [Coburn] couldn’t remember my character’s name in the movie. He knew it began with an L. He was quite elderly then and he was also finishing up a movie at Universal at the same time, so he had a hard time remembering lines. He would get to the line and say, ‘And I tell you Laraine’ or ‘And I tell you Lucille,’ and the slap always came with the name. If we played that scene once, I think we played it forty times. It wasn’t a full slap, but it came with a sting. My face was swollen at the end of that scene. After that, he never forgot me. He always sent me little presents and cards and notes. He felt so sorry about that. He was a wonderful man.”
Despite the trouble filming the scene, the end result pleased Jack Warner. In a memo dated August 20, 1941, Warner wrote the following to associate producer David Lewis: “Dailies last night of Nancy Coleman and Charles Coburn were excellent. This is a great scene.”
In his 1965 examination of King’s Row for Screen Facts, John Cosgrove also cited Nancy’s contribution to this scene. “Another rewarding virtue was the gifted, never gauche performance of Nancy Coleman, as Louise Gordon. When goaded beyond endurance, by the wreckage of her love affair with Drake, the sinister dominance of her sadistic father, and the knowledge that he has unnecessarily amputated her lover’s legs, she confronts him in a blood-stained dress with the accusation, ‘You butcher! You monster!’”
Although King’s Row was completed in 1941, the studio held up its release for a year, fearful that wartime audiences would be put off by its somber tone. Instead, film audiences first got a look at Nancy in the minor spy thriller Dangerously They Live (1941), directed by Robert Florey. In the film, a young doctor (John Garfield) is puzzled by his latest case, a mysterious girl named Jane who claims to be a British secret agent on the run from German spies. Although the doctor doesn’t believe her at first, he eventually discovers that she’s telling the truth and then helps her escape so she can alert authorities about a secret German U-boat fleet waiting off the U.S. coast. Despite the absurd plot, Florey kept the action moving at a crisp pace.
Still, neither Nancy nor Garfield held the film in high regard. Garfield’s sole reason for making it was money. He had already been on suspension for refusing two other roles, and at this point needed a steady paycheck. However, he enjoyed working with Nancy, even though he had to stand on a box during many of their scenes, since she was a few inches taller. As was his custom when making a film, ladykiller Garfield did his best to seduce his leading lady.
“He’d call me up on Sunday to try and get me to come over to his house. And I’d always tell him I wasn’t interested. He couldn’t get me to do things that the average girl would do,” she said.
In general, the critics were kind to the film and the actors. Variety labeled it “a good action film,” and the usually tough Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote “Dangerously They Live is purest pretense, but it manages to hide its shoddy rather well.” He also singled out Nancy’s performance: “Nancy Coleman, an engaging newcomer, provides much interest as the distraught British girl.”
A couple of months later Warners at last released King’s Row (1942). “The town they talk of in whispers!” was how Warners touted the movie. Crowther was unmoved by the film, which he called “gloomy and ponderous … one of the bulkiest blunders to come out of Hollywood in some time.”
James Agee only partially agreed with Crowther, calling King’s Row “half masterpiece and half junk.”
Most other critics, though, gave the film glowing reviews. Redbook called it “a beautiful and moving film,” while The New Yorker raved, “King’s Row will give you that rare glow which comes from seeing a job done crisply, competently and with confidence. It has such distinction that it is plainly too good for the shoddy fellowship of the ten best pictures of the year.”
Apparently not, since King’s Row landed on Film Daily’s Ten Best List and even earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture (Mrs. Miniver took the honor). Despite the acclaim, the film only did modest business at the box office.
Nancy’s next picture was The Gay Sisters (1942), one of her favorite assignments. Directed by Irving Rapper, the film dealt with the loves and legal battles of the Gaylord sisters: proud Fiona (Barbara Stanwyck), lusty Evelyn (Geraldine Fitzgerald) and romantic Susanna (Nancy). Soap opera of the highest class, the drama followed the women as they sorted out their financial misfortunes and romantic entanglements. Years of legal hassles between Fiona and her estranged husband Charles Barclay (George Brent), an enterprising businessman who wants to take possession of the Gaylord estate, are further complicated when Barclay learns that a child (Larry Simms) was produced on his wedding night, just before Fiona ran out on him. Fiona isn’t the only one with a complicated love life: Susanna is desperately in love with a budding artist (Gig Young), but she fears that Evelyn will try to steal him away from her. All problems were handily resolved by screenwriter Lenore Coffee.
Though Nancy was sixth-billed, she had more screen time than third-billed Fitzgerald. The rapport between Nancy and Stanwyck was evident throughout the entire film, and their joint scenes are among the best moments in The Gay Sisters. “There’s one scene of Barbara and I in the cellar drinking up all that was left of the family wine,” Nancy recalls. “I had never played a drunk. How I did it, I don’t know. I still think that may be the best piece of acting I ever did.”
Nancy adored Stanwyck, and the two became close friends off the set. Stanwyck proved to be a humorous and supportive companion whose only bad influence was that she got Nancy hooked on cigarettes, a habit that took her decades to break.
Critics, in general, were less entranced than Nancy with The Gay Sisters. “Another pointlessly caustic inquiry into the lives of the eccentric offspring of a once grand family,” is how The New York Times summed up the film.
The Gay Sisters failed to click at the box office. Stanwyck, in fact, never even listed it among her film credits. “She never liked it,” Nancy said. “She never even mentioned it. I think she resented the title. Maybe it did keep the picture from being as popular as it might have been.” Today the movie is most notable as the first featured role of Byron Barr, whom Warners rechristened Gig Young, the name of his screen character.
Nancy’s next two ventures, Desperate Journey (1942) and Edge of Darkness (1943), both starred Warners’ top adventure star, Errol Flynn. The former, which The New York Times described as “an action melodrama of the wildest stripe,” dealt with American fliers trapped in Germany during World War II. Nancy was the sole female in this testosterone-charged epic that struck a responsive chord with wartime audiences eager for pure thrills.
Edge of Darkness was far sturdier material, and it impressed both critics and theatergoers. Based on William Woods’ novel, Edge of Darkness was a flag-waving drama of Norwegian freedom fighters who oppose the Nazis after they invade their quiet fishing village. At the time, resistance dramas were a staple of each studio (Fox’s The Moon Is Down, MGM’s The Cross of Lorraine and RKO’s This Land Is Mine are but three examples), but Edge of Darkness had a grittier look as a result of on-location shooting in Carmel, California. It also benefited from strong direction by Lewis Milestone and an exceptional cast, headed by Flynn, Ann Sheridan, Judith Anderson, Ruth Gordon, Walter Huston and Helmut Dantine.
Flynn played the leader of an underground army made up of several locals, including his girlfriend Karen (Sheridan) and a partisan (Anderson) who’s in love with a German soldier. Nancy had the emotional role of Dantine’s Polish mistress, which afforded her several scenery-chewing moments, including her first onscreen death scene when she’s murdered.
Nancy may have welcomed being killed off, since it meant she no longer had to play any more scenes with Dantine. “Helmut was a frantic actor,” she recalled. “He couldn’t just say things, he had to do everything physically as well. He always grabbed me by my arms, so that I was black and blue. By the end of the day, the makeup people had to cover me with thick body paint to hide the bruises. Finally, I had to talk to Helmut and in effect give him an acting lesson. I said, ‘Helmut you don’t have to hold me so tight. You can do that with your fingers without grabbing me the way you’re doing.’ And he’d say ‘That’s right, that’s right.’ But he never did do it, so I was a wreck.”
Variety called the film “a dramatic, tense, emotion-stirring story.” The Motion Picture Herald was equally moved, and wrote, “It is not a tea party. It is an icy shower turned loose on audiences in the hope of driving home what this war is about.”
Seen today, Edge of Darkness pales in comparison to Milestone’s superior anti-war masterpiece All Quiet on the Western Front. Although the performances in Edge of Darkness were uniformly good, even wartime audiences had a hard time believing Flynn and Sheridan as Norwegian citizens, particularly since neither made an attempt at affecting an accent. Still, there are some powerful scenes, including one in which Nancy lashes into a hysterical outburst when the Nazis are besieged.
Realism seemed to be amazingly absent from Nancy’s next film, Devotion (1946), purported to chronicle the lives and loves of the Brontë sisters in Victorian England. Whatever resemblance to actual history the picture possessed occurred was purely coincidental.
Directed in fanciful fashion by Curtis Bernhardt, Devotion starred Ida Lupino as Emily Bronte, Olivia de Havilland as sister Charlotte and Nancy as Anne, the least remembered of the trio. Rounding out the cast were Arthur Kennedy as their composer brother Branwell, who was consumed by a love of alcohol; Sydney Greenstreet as William Makepeace Thackeray; and Paul Henreid as Reverend Arthur Nichols. Anyone hoping for an insightful look at the literary aspirations of the three sisters, or how they were inspired to pen Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, were in for a major disappointment.
“It tells ALL about those Brontë sisters! … They didn’t dare call it love—they tried to call it Devotion,” was the girls-dormitory style ad campaign Warners used. Behind the titillating tagline was a maudlin love triangle involving Emily, Charlotte and Nichols. As Anne, poor Nancy only appeared fleetingly.
In spite of the numerous inaccuracies, Devotion did have some virtues. All three leading ladies gave convincing performances, and Kennedy was outstanding as the tortured Branwell. Most memorable was the final shot of a dying Emily, who envisions Death as a black-hooded figure on horseback taking her with him.
Unfortunately, the film’s liabilities outweighed those high points. Henreid seemed lost in his role as the reverend; and the stilted dialogue, which contained the classic exchange, “Good morning, Mr. Thackeray.” “Good morning, Mr. Dickens,” didn’t help matters.
Although the film was made in 1943, it wasn’t released until 1946. Primary cause for the delay was the lawsuit that de Havilland initiated against Warner Bros. in 1943. She took the studio to court because it wanted to add her suspension time onto the seven years of her contract. The case took three years to settle, with de Havilland scoring an important victory that took a swipe at the crumbling studio system.
When Devotion was finally released, the critics were less than kind. The New York Times’ Crowther called the whole endeavor “a ridiculous tax upon reason and an insult to plain intelligence.” One snide critic commented: “They should have called it Distortion.”
Nancy agreed: “I knew most of it was made up. The nearest part that had any truth to it was that of the brother, Branwell. He did drink himself to death. And he was extremely talented. I always thought that was a silly movie, but I got to wear beautiful clothes.”
Almost as silly were some of the off-camera escapades. Lupino and de Havilland had many differences while making the film, but their mutual British heritage led to some peaceful moments between the two. “Olivia was conscious of her British background, what there was of it. She and Ida would have tea served at 4:00 just for them,” Nancy remembered. “I was never invited and it really didn’t bother me. I thought it was kind of funny, but it bothered the extras. They knew what was going on and they resented what they were doing to me. So [the extras] started serving tea at 4:00 and inviting me. It eventually stopped because it got to be a nuisance, but I loved them for it.”
The extras weren’t the only ones on the Warners lot who were enamored of Nancy. By this time, Nancy had begun dating Whitney Bolton, the studio’s head of publicity. The handsome Bolton was a tall, distinguished looking gentleman who sported a droopy mustache. He was also 18 years older than Nancy. His roots as a newspaperman, like Nancy’s father, was an immediate bond the two shared.
Bolton was born on July 23, 1900, in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and had a deep-rooted southern upbringing, which included being educated at the famous Staunton Military Institute and later the University of Virginia. In 1925 he headed to New York, where he began work as a reporter for The New York Herald Tribune. Bolton’s star rose considerably as a result of his coverage of the Snyder-Gray execution in Sing Sing and Rudolph Valentino’s funeral in 1926.
He eventually began writing theater articles for The Herald Tribune, which caught the eye of Gene Fowler, managing editor of The Morning Telegraph. Bolton switched over to that publication and became its Broadway columnist and, by 1932, its drama critic. During this period Bolton was a regular at the Manhattan night spots and also formed a friendship with “Queen of the Night Clubs” Texas Guinan.
Not long after, he moved to the West Coast, where he wrote several screenplays, including 42nd Street. He then switched to publicity and worked for Selznick, RKO and Columbia before joining Warners in the early ’40s. Bolton was known for being outspoken and, as such, was not always popular on the Warners lot. It was no surprise that the studio opposed the relationship between one of its rising stars and the older and garrulous Bolton.
When Nancy and Bolton got engaged in 1943, both were summoned to Jack Warner’s office, where they were told bluntly that they couldn’t be married. “They said if we were married, Whitney couldn’t give me the proper publicity,” Nancy said. “Either he would be accused of giving me too much or too little because he was my husband. This made no sense then and it still doesn’t.”
Both Nancy and Bolton were iron-willed and would not relent to the studio’s strongarm tactics. Their wedding preparations continued, which led to a second meeting with the Warners brass. “They told me, ‘You know Miss Coleman, you’ll never work again.’ And Charlie Einfield, who was a great friend of Jack Warner’s, said to Whitney right in front of me, ‘What do you want to marry her for. You can have an affair with her.’ I was insulted. Whitney was appalled.”
Nancy and Whitney were married on September 16, 1943. Despite their differences with the studio, the Boltons received some lovely presents from Warner Bros. Unfortunately, a good script was not among them. At the time, Nancy was anxious to play Mrs. Mark Twain in The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944), but she lost the role to Alexis Smith.
Nancy’s last Warners film, In Our Time (1944), directed by Vincent Sherman, was an uninvolving romance set in Poland on the brink of World War II. The story opens in London, where Jennifer (Ida Lupino) is with her employer (Mary Boland) to buy antiques. While there, she meets Count Stephen Orvid (Paul Henreid), a charming Polish nobleman. In no time at all the couple gets engaged and heads to Poland to be married and live and work on the Orvid family farm. But Stephen’s family, which includes his old-fashioned mother (Alla Nazimova) and anti-social sister Janina (Nancy), take an instant dislike to Jennifer. The young couple then attempts to modernize the farm, but their plans are put on hold after the Nazis invade Poland.
Sherman was impressed with Nancy’s talent, and the two became good friends. He also felt Nancy’s true gifts were never fully exploited by the studio. “Nancy was a talented actress. She had an unusual look. Unfortunately, she was not well used at Warner Bros. That goes on much too often in this town,” he said.
Nancy was also fascinated by the flamboyant Nazimova, and the two became quite close. The eccentric actress was invited to Nancy’s wedding, but she sent a kind refusal which stated that she would not attend because she didn’t believe in marriage. She wished Nancy much happiness and gave her a handsome pewter and copper fruit bowl as a present.
It was not long after the completion of In Our Time that Nancy’s association with Warners came to an abrupt end. Still smarting from Nancy’s disobedience in marrying Bolton, the studio handed her one dreadful script after another, all of which she refused. Nancy was also anxious to start a family and soon after her wedding became pregnant. She kept her condition a secret for as long as possible before it would be noticeable on camera.
“They used that against me. They put me constantly on suspension, which they shouldn’t have. My pictures were still running and all doing well,” Nancy said.
In 1944 CBS approached Nancy about appearing in a radio version of Intermezzo, which had been a big-screen hit for Ingrid Bergman in Sweden in 1936 and for her American film debut in 1939. Nancy was thrilled at the chance to star in the tale of illicit love between a beautiful pianist and a married violinist. Warners refused permission for her to do it.
“I had three pictures out at that time,” Nancy recalled. “CBS said this would give me publicity and would only do the pictures good. So I went to my agent, Lew Wasserman [of MCA]. I said ‘I’m a pregnant woman who’s not allowed to earn her living. I’m constantly on suspension.’ He said ‘They’ve got no right, but they can do it.’ And Whitney agreed. I didn’t care at that point. I was ready to fight. They kept sending me bad scripts and I stayed on suspension. That was the last part of my career at Warners.”
It wasn’t long after that Nancy finally went to Warner’s office one last time. “I said, ‘I guess you’re not interested in me. I think we’d better call it a day.’ I remember I had a check for $1,500 from Warners for the last week or so that I wasn’t on suspension. I put it in my desk. I almost tore it up, but I didn’t. I also had on my desk a contract for MCA. I then called MCA and said, ‘Our time is up.’”
Most of Nancy’s time was spent caring for her twin daughters Grania and Charla, born in July, 1944. Whitney also had a son, Whitney French Bolton, from a previous marriage.
In 1946, after a two-year absence, Nancy returned to the screen. Warners, frustrated with both Nancy and de Havilland, finally released Devotion, but with little fanfare. Nancy then showed up in Her Sister’s Secret (1946), one of the more ambitious efforts of low-budget Producers Releasing Corporation. In that one she played a young woman who has a baby out of wedlock, which she gives to her sister (Margaret Lindsay) to raise. The secret mentioned in the title was that the married sister’s husband does not know the truth about the child.
The following year she starred in Violence (1947), a cheaply made social drama at Monogram about war veterans who become involved with an activist group. While these two Poverty Row enterprises lacked the polish and production values of Nancy’s Warners efforts, she did get top billing and, for those studios, above-average scripts.
When RKO announced plans to film Mourning Becomes Electra (1947), Nancy campaigned for the role of Hazel Niles, which she saw as her chance to revitalize her career. The ambitious filming of Eugene O’Neill’s tragedy featured a srong cast, including Rosalind Russell, Michael Redgrave, Raymond Massey, Katina Paxinou, Kirk Douglas and Leo Genn. The drama, which was patterned after Sophocles’ tale of Agamemnon, dealt with murder and infidelity in post–Civil War New England. Director Dudley Nichols adapted the screenplay for Theater Guild Productions in only three weeks. The Production Code necessitated that he delete any of the play’s incestuous references, a crucial element, which greatly weakened the screen adaptation.
The tale centered on the dysfunctional Mannon family, which includes hard-hearted Lavinia (Russell); her weak brother Oren (Redgrave), a Civil War soldier who returns home with deep emotional scars; Ezra (Massey), their cruel patriarch; and his wife Christine (Paxinou), who enters into an adulterous relationship with the sailor (Genn) with whom Lavinia is also in love. Rounding out the cast were Douglas as Peter Niles, Lavinia’s fiancée; Nancy as his sister Hazel, who’s engaged to Oren; and Henry Hull as the caretaker and one-man Greek chorus.
Clearly it was an artistic venture with little commercial appeal, but it offered choice roles for the entire cast. Nancy was delighted when she won the role, though she nearly didn’t get it. “Boy did I work for that,” she recalled. “That’s the only time I ever got my hair bleached. I wanted to test and they said, ‘Nancy, you’re too dark and it’s going to be a black and white picture. We want a blonde for the part.’ So I had my hair lightened. It was still red, but it looked like hair that had been dyed. It was done well. I let it grow out and then had it dyed back to the original color.”
Despite the efforts of everyone involved, Mourning Becomes Electra emerged as a lugubriously photographed stage play. Bosley Crowther’s review in The New York Times did little to stir up interest. “There’s no escaping that Mourning Becomes Electra is far from electric entertainment—it is a static and tiresome show, in fact.”
Mourning Becomes Electra was initially released on a reservations-only basis but failed to emerge as the cinematic event distributors hoped for. The film originally ran 159 minutes but was later cut by nearly one hour and put into general release, a decision that both made the film incomprehensible and whittled Nancy’s role down to little more than a walk-on. Even after it was edited, audiences stayed away. RKO’s total loss on the film was $2.31 million.
Following the disappointment of Mourning Becomes Electra, Nancy put her film career on hold. Whitney had been asked to return to his old job as columnist and drama critic with The Morning Telegraph. He accepted and, in 1949, the Boltons moved to New York.
“That was a low point. We essentially had to start all over again,” Nancy said. “Whitney had one fault—he couldn’t save money. He never invested it, he spent it.”
The first few years back in New York were a struggle for the Boltons as they managed, minus Nancy’s salary, with Whitney’s smaller income. Within a few years their situation improved. In addition to his newspaper work, Whitney did two daily newscasts for the Mutual Broadcasting System. Nancy, meanwhile, concentrated on caring for their two children.
In 1950 she made her first film in three years, a Spanish-made thriller called That Man from Tangier. The film was made as a tax shelter for its producers who had money in Spain that they needed to spend. Nancy considered it forgettable, and it had few bookings in the United States. “The only good thing I got from that was some beautiful clothes,” she said.
In February, 1955, Nancy made an impressive return to the stage in The Desperate Hours, a grim drama about a middle-class family held hostage in their home by gunmen. Paul Newman played the gang leader, with Karl Malden and Nancy as the terrified couple trying to protect themselves and their children. The play, staged by Robert Montgomery, ran for 212 performances. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times said Malden and Nancy were “admirable.”
Nancy spent the remainder of the ’50s doing work on television, including a regular role on the soap opera Valiant Lady and guest appearances on such programs as The U.S. Steel Hour. In the ’60s she again popped up in a daytime serial, The Edge of Night.
In 1961 Nancy was chosen to go on a European tour for the State Department and the Theater Guild. The group traveled throughout the continent, except for the British Isles and the Iron Curtain countries.
Far more controversial was a second tour Nancy made in 1964. She agreed to appear with a South African repertory company for a tour, despite warnings from friends and colleagues that it looked as if she was showing support for apartheid. “I was criticized greatly for taking employment with South Africa,” she recalled. “I told everyone ‘I don’t approve of apartheid, but how do I know it until I experience it?’”
While in South Africa, Nancy lived in Johannesburg, Capetown and Pretoria. She became friendly with some of the British citizens, who acquainted her with South African history, including the Dutch takeover of the area and their ban on apartheid. The tour was cut short for Nancy when Grania announced that she planned to be married in London immediately.
In 1969 Nancy made her first film in nearly 20 years, a pre–Civil War drama called Slaves, directed by Herbert Biberman, who had been blacklisted in the ’50s. Ossie Davis played a slave who leads a revolt of the other slaves against their plantation owner (Stephen Boyd). Although Nancy liked being before the camera again, she wasn’t happy with the final print.
Later that year Nancy was dealt a tragic blow when her beloved Whitney died from cancer on November 4. With her daughters now married and starting families of their own, Nancy had to deal with being alone in New York.
She found some solace a few years later when she began seeing Dr. Henry Ross, a prominent New York surgeon who was also the widower of actress Glenda Farrell. The two enjoyed attending various events together in New York, including plays and concerts.
Nancy continued to find occasional work on television, most notably her appearance as Abigail Adams in public television’s The Adams Chronicles, and on stage, including a role in Paul Osborn’s comedy Morning’s at Seven at the Theater of the Performing Arts in Miami Beach in February 1981. Sylvia Sidney, Dana Andrews and Patricia O’Connell were her co-stars.
In 1987 Nancy had a brief run portraying a nun on Ryan’s Hope, an ABC daytime serial. By this point Nancy had occasional difficulty remembering lines. After only a few months she was let go. “I guess they decided they didn’t want to bother dealing with me,” she said.
Nancy spent her last few years living in Manhattan, where she indulged in her favorite pastimes—reading and spending time with her daughters and grandchildren. In 1998 she moved into the Actors Fund Retirement Home in Englewood, New Jersey, and the next year she relocated to another retirement home in Brockport, New York. Though she had gotten frail in her last few years, she still had vivid memories of her career and was as feisty as ever right up to the end of her life. Nancy died on January 18, 2000, after a bout with pneumonia.
Although she may have graced just a handful of Warners movies, Nancy still received a tremendous amount of mail from her many fans up until the time she died. “I find the reactions to my so-called career very interesting,” she said in 1999. “I get a lot of fan mail from Europe, especially from Germany and some from Spain. I also get a lot from Scotland. It doesn’t do me any good, but it makes me realize that I made an impression.”
Dangerously They Live (Warner Bros., 1941) Directed by Robert Florey. Cast: John Garfield, Nancy Coleman, Raymond Massey, Lee Patrick, Moroni Olsen, Esther Dale, John Ridgeley.
King’s Row (Warner Bros., 1942) Directed by Sam Wood. Cast: Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings, Ronald Reagan, Betty Field, Charles Coburn, Claude Rains, Judith Anderson, Nancy Coleman, Kaaren Verne, Maria Ouspensakaya.
The Gay Sisters (Warner Bros., 1942) Directed by Irving Rapper. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Donald Crisp, Gig Young, Nancy Coleman, Gene Lockhart.
Desperate Journey (Warner Bros., 1942) Directed by Raoul Walsh. Cast: Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan, Nancy Coleman, Raymond Massey, Alan Hale, Arthur Kennedy, Albert Basserman.
Edge Of Darkness (Warner Bros., 1943) Directed by Lewis Milestone. Cast: Errol Flynn, Ann Sheridan, Walter Huston, Nancy Coleman, Helmut Dantine, Judith Anderson, Ruth Gordon.
In Our Time (Warner Bros., 1944) Directed by Vincent Sherman. Cast: Ida Lupino, Paul Henreid, Nancy Coleman, Mary Boland, Victor Francen, Alla Nazimova, Michael Chekhov.
Devotion (Warner Bros., 1946) Directed by Curtis Bernhardt. Cast: Ida Lupino, Paul Henreid, Olivia de Havilland, Sydney Greenstreet, Nancy Coleman, Arthur Kennedy, Dame May Whitty.
Her Sister’s Secret (PRC, 1946) Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. Cast: Nancy Coleman, Margaret Lindsay, Philip Reed, Felix Bressart, Regis Toomey, Henry Stephenson, Fritz Feld.
Unusual Occupations (1947) Documentary short narrated by Ken Carpenter and featuring appearances by Candice Bergen, Nancy Coleman, Brian Donlevy, Nora Eddington, Kay Kyser, Alan Ladd, Dorothy Lamour, Maureen O’Sullivan, Gail Patrick, Ann Rutherford.
Violence (Monogram, 1947) Directed by Jack Bernhard. Cast: Nancy Coleman, Michael O’Shea, Emory Parnell, Sheldon Leonard, Peter Whitney, Richard Irving, Frank Reicher.
Mourning Becomes Electra (RKO Radio, 1947) Directed by Dudley Nichols. Cast: Rosalind Russell, Michael Redgrave, Raymond Massey, Katina Paxinou, Leo Genn, Kirk Douglas, Nancy Coleman.
That Man from Tangier (Elemsee–United Artists, 1950) Directed by Luis María Delgado and Robert Elwyn. Cast: Fernando Aguirre, Nils Asther, Julia Caba Alba, Nancy Coleman, Gary Land, Sara Montiel.
Slaves (Slaves Company/Theatre Guild/Walter Reade, 1969) Directed by Herbert J. Biberman. Cast: Stephen Boyd, Dionne Warwick, Marilyn Clark, Nancy Coleman, Ossie Davis.