Nancy Coleman Biography

Like Jane Bryan and Andrea Leeds before her, Nancy Coleman was a young powerhouse of an actress whose Hollywood assignments nearly always seemed beneath her talents. After experience in radio and on Broadway, Nancy was brought to Hollywood by Warner Bros. Among her early screen assignments was the thankless task of playing Anne, the least interesting of the Bronte sisters, in Devotion (1943), a film dominated by Ida Lupino and Olivia DeHavilland. She was seen to far better advantage as the neurotic Louise Gordon in Kings Row (1942), the tragic mistress of Nazi Helmut Dantine in Edge of Darkness (1943), and the put-upon wife of Polish count Paul Henreid in In Our Time (1944). Nancy Coleman left films after marrying Warners publicist Whitney Bolton, making unexpected return appearances in Man From Tangier (1953) and in black-listed director Herbert Biberman's comeback picture Slaves (1968). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi