Nancy Olson

Nancy Ann Olson (born July 14, 1928) is an American retired actress. She made her film debut Canadian Pacific, before gaining prominence as Betty Schaefer in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950), for which she earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She later co-starred with William Holden in three more films Union Station (1950), Force of Arms (1951), and Submarine Command (1951).

Olson requested to be released from her contract with Paramount after marrying lyricist and playwright Alan Jay Lerner, whose musical My Fair Lady was dedicated to her. She later reached a new generation of audiences through several Walt Disney productions, including Pollyanna (1960) The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) and its sequel, Son of Flubber (1963), and appeared in disaster film Airport 1975 (1974) which reunited her with her Sunset Boulevard co-star Gloria Swanson. She later retired from acting in the mid-1980s, with only rare screen appearances afterward. Olson is the earliest surviving Academy Award-nominee and one of the last surviving stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Early life Olson was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 14, 1928, and raised there, along with her brother, David. Her parents were Evelyn Bertha (née Bergstrom), who was of Swedish descent, and Henry John Olson, a physician of Norwegian descent.

Olson's elementary and secondary education was in Milwaukee schools. When her family moved to California, she transferred to UCLA after a year at the University of Wisconsin. Her performance in a play at UCLA attracted the attention of a talent scout who had attended to observe the male lead.

Olson made several appearances in films for the Walt Disney studio. The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) and Son of Flubber (1963) paired her with Fred MacMurray and were popular with movie-goers. She also appeared alongside Hayley Mills in Pollyanna (1960), Glenn Ford in Smith! (1969), and Dean Jones in Snowball Express (1972).

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Olson did guest roles on television. Olson guest-starred on the television series The Big Valley playing Ron Howard's mother in the December 1, 1965, episode titled "Night of the Wolf". Olson is the only guest starring on The Big Valley to marry the character Nick Barkley.

Olson has been retired since the mid-1980s, although she made a brief, uncredited appearance in Flubber, the 1997 remake of The Absent-Minded Professor, and Dumbbells (2014).

In 2022, Olson released a memoir, A Front Row Seat: An Intimate Look at Broadway, Hollywood, and the Age of Glamour.

Personal life In 1950, Olson became the third wife of lyricist Alan Jay Lerner. They had two daughters, Liza and Jennifer. They divorced in 1957.

In 1962, she married long-time Capitol Records executive Alan W. Livingston, best known for creating Bozo the Clown and for signing The Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, and others to Capitol. He died in 2009; they had one son, Christopher.

Filmography Film

Television