Oscar Profile #73: Nina Foch

Born April 20, 1924 in Leiden, Holland to Dutch classical music conductor Dirk Fock and his wife, American actress-singer Consuelo Flowerton, her parents divorced when she was a toddler and she moved with her mother to New York where she grew up.

Although she studied music and art, she turned to acting as a teenager and by the age of sixteen was already appearing in films. Her breakthrough came as the second female lead in 1945’s A Song to Remember which led to her being cast as the heroine in distress in the 1945 classic film noir, My Name Is Julia Ross. A sleeper hit, its success should have led to starring roles in major films, but, alas, she would remain in supporting roles at her home studio, Columbia. Among the more successful ones were Johnny O’Clock; The Guilt of Janet Ames; The Dark Past and Johnny Allegro.

An early entrant into TV, she still received an occasional important screen role such as that of Gene Kelly’s patron and would-be paramour in the 1951 Oscar winner, An American in Paris. She was the ill-fated Marie Antoinette in the 1952 version of Scramouche and a rich horsewoman in 1953’s Fast Company.

Her portrayal of the loyal company secretary in 1954’s Executive Suite earned her the first Best Supporting Actress award given by the National Board of Review, which led to her only Oscar nomination.

That same year she married her first husband, future TV host James Lipton.

She had one of her most memorable screen roles as Bithiah, Moses’ adoptive Egyptian mother in 1956’s The Ten Commandments. She had another high profile role as Helena Glabrus, the woman who chooses gladiators to fight to the death for her amusement in 1960’s Spartacus.

Divorced from Lipton in 1959, she married second husband, writer Dennis Brito, the father of her only child, that same year. They were divorced in 1963. She married her third and final husband, stage producer Michael Dewell in 1967. They were divorced in 1993.

George Stevens’ Assistant Director on 1959’s The Diary of Anne Frank, she was an acting teacher for many years, most notably at USC.

Foch’s TV roles were as varied as her film roles, and included such gems as the female lead in 1959’s Ten Little Indians; Mrs. Danvers in 1962’s Rebecca and later roles in the classic mini-series, War and Remembrance and Tales of the City as well as roles on such TV series as Murder, She Wrote and NCIS. Her recurring role as David McCallum’s wacky but endearing elderly mother in the latter series beginning in 2005 made her more popular than she had been in decades.

Nina Foch died of a blood disorder on December 8, 2008 at the age of 84. She had still been teaching acting at the time of her death.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS (1945), directed by Joseph H. Lewis

A neat mystery and a highly effective film noir, this fast-paced 65 minute B feature should have made a major star of Foch but oddly didn’t.

She plays a young English girl with no family who is kidnapped by a wealthy woman, played by Dame May Whitty, and passed off as the wife of her mad son, played by George Macready. It’s taut, thrilling and altogether creepy in a good way.

AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951), directed by Vicente Minnelli

Foch was only 27 when she played the older woman with designs on Gene Kelly, in real life twelve years her senior. Kelly, Leslie Caron and Georges Guetary sing and dance up a storm and Oscar Levant plays the piano and cracks wise, but the dramatic tension is supplied by Foch who seems to be having lots of fun playing a patron of the arts.

EXECUTIVE SUITE (1954), directed by Robert Wise

A who’s who in Hollywood cast of William Holden, June Allyson, Fredric March, Barbara Stanwyck, Walter Pidgeon, Dean Jagger, Paul Douglas, Shelley Winters and Louis Calhern have roles that crackle and spark in this high tension boardroom drama with Foch not seeming to have much to do except cater to their whims as the company secretary. Whatever it was that she did it was enough to get her the first and only Oscar nomination of her long career.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956), directed by Cecil B. DeMille

Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter, Edward G. Robinson and Vincent Price were the big names in DeMille’s epic, but others including John Derek, Yvonne De Carlo and Martha Scott has their moments as did Foch who excels as Bithiah, the Pharaoh’s daughter who finds the infant Moses and raises him with the aid of her servant, Memnet. Memnet is played by Judith Anderson whose most famous role was as Mrs. Danvers in the 1940 Oscar winner Rebecca, a role Foch herself would play in the 1962 TV version.

SPARTACUS (1960), directed by Stanley Kubrick

Another high profile cast, this one led by Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Peter Ustinov, John Gavin and Tony Curtis and another one in which Foch shines in a small but pivotal role, this time as Helena Glabrus who relishes her role in choosing gladiators to fight to the heath for her amusement.

It would prove to be her last important role in a major film.