Nancy Marchand

A handsome woman

Her Emmy win, so witty and elegant

I wish the lord would take me now

She WAS Nancy Marchand!

She was also Frasier's mother on Cheers who called Diane "a pseudo-intellectual barmaid".

R3 She was the real gangster on the show

R5 Yes! She tried to kill Diane Chambers

She was also in a very good episode of Law & Order where she played a wealthy woman helping cover up her son's murder

Pauline Kael in her last interview raved about The Sopranos and Nancy Marchand in particular. She said Marchand gave the best performance of her career as Livia Soprano.

Was she/he a trannie?

R9 I believe it. Nancy really deglamorized herself and played against type with Livia. Most of her other roles were posh and sophisticated women.

Not her first big role, in the TV version of Marty, playing the loser that Betsy Blair played later in the film.

She was one of Iris Carrington’s friends on “Another World” back in the ‘70’s.

Nancy Marchand appeared in the 1980 Broadway revival of Morning's at Seven as Ida Bolton. The revival was a huge success and ran for 564 performances.

It opened on April 10, 1980 at the Lyceum Theatre in New York City.

This was a great production.

R2. Was she drunk?

It looks like she went to the wrong podium when she won her Emmy at R2. 😂

I loved her speech.

Livia runs over friend

She was Mrs. Pynchon on Lou Grant, loosely modeled on Katherine Graham.

[quote] Livia runs over friend

She should've sent her to the mines of Numidia instead.

check out her Broadway credits

Impressive on stage, screen, and film, why is she not more famous?

James Gandolfini put in an epic performance of a lifetime by playing Tony Soprano, but Nancy Marchand managed to out act him and the rest of the class.

R21, we seem to prefer to remember beautiful people.

Marchand was a much more accomplished performer than Marilyn Monroe, although I’m not disrespecting her — she clearly could carry a part.

Who do we remember though?

R14. That production of Morning's at Seven had one of the greatest casts I've ever seen and they all worked together beautifully as an ensemble. At one point Nancy was jetting back and forth between coasts because she was shooting Lou Grant and doing the play at the same time. She and her understudy split the role.

R24 is there a video of the production?

Nancy Marchand's Livia was only a slightly more exaggerated version of my mother. (I know all you bitches had moms like June Cleaver but some of us did not. Far from it.) Watching Nancy's scenes as a controlling, narcissistic, passive-aggressive mother in the early stages of dementia was personally difficult. She nailed that character.

Loved her on Lou Grant.

She must have been rolling in her grave over this.

R28 CGI has come a long way!

Her speaking voice at r1 was disarming. She sounds quite different from her best-known characters.

[quote][R5] Yes! She tried to kill Diane Chambers

Wrong, r7. She warned Diane that she "knew people" who would do it.

R31, were those people New Jersey mobsters by any chance?

LADYBUG LADYBUG

I wish she would have lived a few more years, I bet her storyline on the Sopranos would have become unhinged in the best way possible.

I gave my life to my children on a silver platter.

I wish the lord would take me now.

As The Mayor in The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!

"Entering without a search warrant, destroying property, arson; sexual assault with a concrete dildo?"

Her patrician pussy smelled.

One of my favorite scenes from the remake of Sabrina.

Marty, 1953, TV version with Rod Steiger.

R41 She was 25 but looked 45

[quote]I gave my life to my children on a silver platter.

Oh, POOR YOU!

R42 She looked like a man.

R44 It was years of chain smoking and heavy drinking

Of course, what else?

She was good as the Mother Superior in Merchant Ivory's Jefferson in Paris

Nancy just had a strong face. Power is power

Her father was my father's dentist in Buffalo, so there's that connection.

One of my favorite memories of her was as Mrs. Pynchon dealing with the unions on the newspaper. She rejected some demand by the union as "blatant featherbedding." Years later, as a shop steward, I used that word constantly in a negotiation by saying that the union was not indulging in blatant featherbedding. No one fully got the metaphor, but I got my point across -- and some concessions!

As noted above, she was on Another World as one of Iris Carrington's society friends.

She played Theresa LaMonte, who had cardiac issues and died sitting in a chaise lounge on Iris' patio, as she sang "Bye, Bye Blackbird."

She was only on for four months in 1976, but made a huge impression on viewers.

R34 yeah, it sucks she died before The Sopranos was completed. David Chase apparently had big plans for her character. She wasn't named Livia for shits and giggles...Chase was a fan of I, Claudius.

I saw her in Christopher Durang's Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You off-Broadway in the early 80s.

Good character actress, but I always thought she was completely miscast as Tony’s mother in “The Sopranos.” Too refoned and aristocratic looking and sounding.

There, I’ve said it!

Which actress would you have preferred R53?

[quote] Good character actress, but I always thought she was completely miscast as Tony’s mother in “The Sopranos.” Too refoned and aristocratic looking and sounding.

R53 is it possible you watched a lot of Lou Grant so it was hard for you to see her as Livia. I didn't really watch Lou Grant, although I remember seeing Marchand winning Emmys for her role, so I had no problem at all falling hook line and sinker for her portrayal. She was a scream!

The cigarettes killed her.

Nancy really didn't speak like a snob. She was a terrific actress that loved her craft

She was STAUNCH!

Chase said that while she wasn’t Italian (she’s a New York WASP) she reminded him so much of his own mother in her audition that he cast her immediately to play the part.

Nancy, James Gandolini and Edie Falco are such refined actors. Wow! A privilege to watch the Sopranos.

She was notably good in the other roles I saw, but Livia Soprano was one of the greatest characters ever, and Matchand was supremely good.

This is a very funny scene from Sopranos- Darkly humorous

Turturro and Marchand

Nancy always had that ruthless precense.

"These blacks! You never know what they're gonna take the wrong way!…….

.......I know how to tawlk to people.”

I'd seen her in many roles over the years and was shocked when she popped up as Livia. Probably the most despicable character I've ever seen on TV. She nailed that role.

Was she a lezzie lou? Cuz she looks dyke-o-rama as the day is long.

I don’t like that kind of talk. Now stop it, it upsets me.

Her father was a dentist.

No, r67.