Nina Foch, Dutch-American actress (b. 1924)
Nina Foch ( FOSH; born Nina Consuelo Maud Fock; April 20, 1924 – December 5, 2008) was a Dutch-born American actress who later became an instructor. Her career spanned six decades, consisting of over 50 feature films and over 100 television appearances. She was the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and a National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress. Foch established herself as a dramatic actress in the late 1940s, often playing cool, aloof sophisticates.Born in Leiden, Netherlands in 1924, Foch immigrated to the United States with her mother while still a toddler, and was raised in New York City. After signing a contract with Columbia Pictures at age 19, Foch became a regular in the studio's horror pictures and films noir, starring in such films as The Return of the Vampire (1943), Escape in the Fog, and My Name Is Julia Ross (1945). She concurrently embarked on a stage career, making her Broadway debut as the titular Mary in 1947's John Loves Mary. She subsequently starred in several Broadway productions of William Shakespeare plays, including Twelfth Night (1949), King Lear (1950), and Measure for Measure (1955).
Foch gained widespread notice for her role as Milo Roberts in the musical film An American in Paris (1951); Robert Wise's drama Executive Suite (1954), which earned her the Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress; Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956); and Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus (1960). In 1967, she made her theatrical directorial debut with a Broadway production of Ways and Means, a comedy by Noël Coward. Foch also worked extensively in television beginning in the 1950s, with notable roles including the victim in the first of Peter Falk's Columbo films in 1968, as well as guest-starring parts in The Wild Wild West (1969), The F.B.I. (1970), and Hawaii Five-O (1973). In 1980, she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress for her guest role on an episode of Lou Grant.
Beginning in the 1960s, Foch began a concurrent career as an educator, teaching courses in drama and film directing at the American Film Institute and at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, where she was a faculty member for over 40 years. Among her students were directors Randal Kleiser, Edward Zwick, and Amy Heckerling, and performer Julie Andrews. Foch continued to teach until the end of her life, up until her death in December 2008 of myelodysplastic syndrome.