Nancy Kelly

Nancy Kelly

actress, soundtrack

Nancy Kelly was born on Mar 25, 1921 in USA. Nancy Kelly's big-screen debut came with The Untamed Lady directed by Frank Tuttle in 1926. Nancy Kelly is known for The Bad Seed directed by Mervyn LeRoy, Gage Clarke stars as Tasker and Jesse White as Emory. Nancy Kelly has got 1 awards and 3 nominations so far. The most recent award Nancy Kelly achieved is Walk of Fame. The upcoming new movie Nancy Kelly plays is Murder at the World Series which will be released on Mar 20, 1977.

Coached by her show-business mother, a former actress, brunette Nancy Kelly started her career as a one-year-old model for James Montgomery Flagg. While receiving her education at the Bentley School for Girls she also trained as an actress. From 1926, at age 5, the precociously talented Nancy became one of the most prolific of Hollywood child actresses with performances opposite established stars like Gloria Swanson and Jean Hersholt.In 1929, she appeared on Broadway in a revival of "Macbeth". As an adult actress she displayed a greater flair for drama than comedy. Nancy gave a strong performance as an aviatrix in Descente en vrille (1939), co-starring with Alice Faye. She was also a leading lady to Tyrone Power in the A-grade western Le brigand bien-aimé (1939). She had a pleasing supporting role in the lavish musical Quatre du music-hall (1944) and the lead in an intelligent low-budget horror movie, Woman Who Came Back (1945), in which she portrayed a woman who believed herself to be the reincarnation of a witch burned at the stake 300 years earlier.In between films, Nancy alternated work in radio ("The March of Time", 1932-37) and the stage, where she garnered good reviews for "Susan and God" (1937, as "Blossom"), Clifford Odets' "The Big Knife" (1949), and "Season in the Sun" (1950). Her best remembered performance, however, was as the mother of a murderous child in Maxwell Anderson's play "The Bad Seed". Nancy appeared in both the theatrical (Broadway, 1954-55) and the subsequent film version (La mauvaise graine (1956)). Walter Kerr of the New York Herald Tribune wrote of her Tony Award-winning stage performance: "Though Miss Kelly has done attractive work on Broadway before, she has never really prepared us for the brilliance of the present portrait" (New York Times, January 14 1995). She was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actress for her film role, but ultimately lost out to Ingrid Bergman in Anastasia (1956). Following "The Bad Seed", Nancy appeared almost exclusively on the small screen. She died from complications of diabetes in 1995, aged 73.

  • Birthday

    Mar 25, 1921
  • Place of Birth

    Lowell, Massachusetts, USA

Known For

Awards

1 wins & 3 nominations

Walk of Fame
1960
Motion Picture
Winner - Star on the Walk of Fame

Movies & TV Shows

All
Movies