Nancy Abbate Caldwell

Nancy Abbate Caldwell (born June 19, 1942) is an American former actress and dancer who was a Mousketeer on the first season of The Mickey Mouse Club. She left entertaining to become a dance teacher.

Early years Caldwell was born Nancy Lee Abbate in Los Angeles. When she was 7 years old, she began taking dancing lessons. She progressed from a local dance instructor to studying with Louis Dupron, a dance director for a Hollywood studio. Dupron later arranged an audition for Caldwell for a part in the film Love Is Better Than Ever, and she got the role.

Career

Entertaining In 1954, Caldwell was picked to be a Mousketeer for the first season of The Mickey Mouse Club. She left after that first year, partly because of rivalries and jealousy among the Mousketeers and partly because she wanted to do other work. She also appeared in the films The Farmer Takes a Wife and Courage of Black Beauty. Its success led her to open another studio with the same name in Temecula, California, in the early 1990s.

Personal life Caldwell married when she was 16 years old. Three months after the wedding, she was six weeks pregnant when her husband died in a train crash.