Nan Martin (July 15, 1927 – March 4, 2010) was an American actress who starred in movies and on television.Born in Decatur, Illinois and raised in Santa Monica, California, her first film role was The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956). Her other film roles included The Mugger (1958), Doctor Detroit (1983), All of Me (1984), A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) where she played the role of Amanda Krueger, the mother of killer Freddy Krueger. Her last film role is in 2005's Thicker than Water.Martin starred on Mr. Sunshine. Her other well-known roles were in the 1983 miniseries The Thorn Birds and on the soap opera Santa Barbara. She had a recurring role on the ABC hit TV series The Drew Carey Show as Mrs. Lauder. She made many guest appearances on various television series, some of those appearances range from Ben Casey, The Untouchables, The Twilight Zone, and Star Trek: The Next Generation as Victoria Miller in the season 1 episode "Haven", and she played Rose, the secretary of murderer Alex Brady in the Columbo television movie, Murder, Smoke and Shadows. In 1965 she played co-murderer Beth Fuller in the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Fatal Fortune."She appeared on two episodes of The Golden Girls: first as the mean-spirited and nasty Frieda Claxton, who was told to drop dead by Rose Nylund, which she did. She also portrayed Philomena, a friend of Sophia Petrillo's from Sicily, who claimed that Dorothy was really her daughter and not Sophia's. One month after her appearance on The Golden Girls, she appeared as Valerie's mean and nasty chain-smoking Aunt Josephine on The Hogan Family. In the middle of the episode, Valerie comes home and tells Mike, "We lost Aunt Josephine at the supermarket." When inquiring about what happened, Valerie said that she and Josephine were in the express check-out (10 items or less). Valerie explained, "The gentleman in front of us had two six-packs of beer and Josephine insisted it was twelve items" and in the middle of her rage, she drops dead and falls into the candy display.
[on acting on television] Television keeps actors in the chips and out of the cold.
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Fact
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She was awarded the 1983 Drama Logue Award for Outstanding Performance for "Grown Ups" at the Mark Taper Forum Theatre in Los Angeles, California.
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Had a penchant for motherly roles -- both nice, and not so nice. On screen, she was effective as Ali McGraw's snobbish, newly-rich mother in Goodbye, Columbus (1969), and as Freddie Krueger's mother, Amanda, in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987); On the Broadway stage she played mothers in "Eccentricities of a Nightingale" (1976), "Buried Child" (1986) and "All My Sons" (1986).
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First acted in a campus production of "The Gentle People" while a student at UCLA. Had a stint as a fashion model for designer Adrian, then made her debut on Broadway in 1950 in "A Story for a Sunday Evening".
She was awarded the 1995 Joseph Jefferson Award for Actress in a Principal Role in a Play for "Three Tall Women" at Fox Theatricals in Chicago, Illinois.
Once wed to musician/composer/producer Robert Emmett Dolan. They had one child: Casey Martin Dolan.
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From her marriage to architect Harry Gesner, she is the mother of actor Zen Gesner, best known for his title role in The Adventures of Sinbad (1996). She and Harry named him after the Japanese Buddhist sect that preaches enlightenment through meditation.
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Was nominated for Broadway's 1959 Tony Award as Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Dramatic) for "J.B."
$700,000
