Oscar Profile #628: Nancy Olson Revisited

Born July 14, 1928 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Henry Olson, a physician, and his wife, Evelyn, Nancy Olson was discovered on stage at UCLA which she transferred to in 1948. Nicknamed Wholesome Olson, the peaches-and-cream blonde was given a walk-on in 1948’s Portrait of Jennie and then given a contract by Paramount.

Olson made her first credited appearance in 1949’s Canadian Pacific starring Randolph Scott and Jane Wyatt. Cecil B. DeMille wanted to cast her as Delilah in Samson and Delilah but no one else, Olson included, thought she was right for the part. Instead, she was cast as William Holden’s love interest in Billy Wilder’s 1950 classic, Sunset Boulevard, for which she received her first and only Oscar nomination. That same year she married lyricist and librettist Alan Jay Lerner with whom she would have two daughters.

Later in 1950, Olson starred opposite Holden in Union Station and Bing Crosby in Mr. Music. In 1951, Holden was her co-star again in Submarine Command and in 1952, she starred opposite John Wayne in Big Jim McLain. In 1953, she had one of her best roles as Jane Wyman’s potential daughter-in-law in So Big. 1954 found her opposite Will Rogers Jr. in The Boy from Oklahoma. She was a standout in the ensemble cast of 1955’s Battle Cry as a New Zealand widow in love with an American G.I.

Lerner dedicated his libretto for the classic 1956 Broadway musical, My Fair Lady, which she encouraged him to write, to her, but the couple divorced the following year.

Olson appeared in three high profile hits on Broadway between 1957 and 1964. She first starred opposite Tom Ewell in The Tunnel of Love and David Wayne in Send Me No Flowers with both roles going to Doris Day when the film versions were made. Then she replaced Barbara Bel Geddes in Mary, Mary. Debbie Reynolds starred in the film version of that one.

The actress returned to films after a five-year absence, in-between stage roles, to play a major supporting role in Disney’s Pollyanna starring Hayley Mills. She then starred opposite Fred MacMurray in Disney’s 1962 hit, The Absent-Minded Professor and its 1963 sequel, Son of Flubber. She married Capitol Records president Alan Livingston, who worked with the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the latter-day Frank Sinatra among others. Their son Christopher was born in 1964.

Off the screen for another six years, she returned in 1969 for Disney’s Smith! and again for Disney’s Snowball Express in 1972.

A frequent guest star in TV series from 1954 through 1984, Olson made just two more theatrical films before retiring. She played Linda Blair’s mother in 1974’s Airport 1975 and Michael Ontkean’s mother in 1982’s Making Love. She subsequently made guest appearances in 1997’s Flubber, a remake of The Absent-Minded Professor, and 2014’s Dumbbells, which was directed by her son, Christopher.

Alan Livingston died in 2009 at 91. Nancy at 94 is the second earliest surviving recipient of a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination behind Ann Blyth. Her autobiography, A Front Row Seat: An Intimate Look at Broadway, Hollywood, and The Age of Glamour has just been published.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950), directed by Billy Wilder

Olson’s portrayal of the wholesome script reader who falls for hack writer and gigolo William Holden earned her an Oscar nomination for what was only her third film, just the second in which she had a credited role. The peaches-and-cream blonde more than held her own with screen legends Gloria Swanson and Erich von Stroheim as well as leading man Holden, who were also nominated for their performances as was the film, its direction, cinematography, and editing, winning for its screenplay by Wilder and Charles Brackett, as well as for its art direction and set design and its score.

SO BIG (1953), directed by Robert Wise

This was the third and best version of Edna Ferber’s beloved novel with Olson in the old Phyllis Haver/Bette Davis role in support of Jane Wyman in the old Colleen Moore/Barbara Stanwyck role. The story centers around a single mother whose son nicknamed “so big” falls in love with Olson’s character. In the 1932 version, Davis so overwhelmed Stanwyck that Stanwyck refused to appear in the film’s climactic scene with her. No such thing this time with Wyman and Olson who became fast friends and appeared together again in Pollyanna. Olson later appeared with Stanwyck in TV’s The Big Valley.

BATTLE CRY (1955), directed by Raoul Walsh

From Leon Uris’ best-seller, this all-star cast film was considered the most realistic and memorable of the many films about World War II soldiers, or this case, marines, and the women who love them, by veterans of the war. Van Heflin, Aldo Ray, Tab Hunter, Dorothy Malone, James Whitmore, Mona Freeman, John Lupton, Anne Francis, William Campbell, L.Q. Jones, Perry Lopez, Allyn Ann McLerie, and Raymond Massey all turn in memorable performances, but Olson is the standout as the New Zealand farm widow who tames womanizer Ray. That’s the reason she is the most prominently featured woman in the film’s trailer.

POLLYANNA (1960), directed by David Swift

Hayley Mills received the last Oscar for Best Juvenile Performance for her star-making turn in the title role of the girl who could only see the good in people. The supporting cast is one the strongest ever accorded a Disney film with Jane Wyman as Pollyanna’s bitter aunt, Karl Malden as the fire and brimstone minister, Adolphe Menjou as the town recluse, Agnes Moorhead as a hypochondriac, and Donald Crisp as the town’s mayor, all of whom are flawed characters, the cockles of whose hearts are warmed by Mills. Richard Egan, James Drury and Olson in her first film appearance in five years are fine to begin with and need no warming.

MAKING LOVE (1982), directed by Arthur Hiller

The first mainstream Hollywood film in which gay characters were depicted as ordinary people was such a hot property that director Hiller opted out of directing Pau Newman in The Verdict to make it. It was, however, a box-office disappointment, with stars Michael Ontkean as a latent gay doctor, Kate Jackson as his unsuspecting TV producer wife, and Harry Hamlin as his free-spirited lover, good as they were, going from an anticipation of lasting film stardom to having to go back to TV to sustain their careers. Olson as Ontkean’s mother, in her last film before her retirement, is wasted with just one line in one scene.