Nancy Olson
Highest Rated: 98% Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Lowest Rated: 14% Dumbbells (2014)
Birthday: Jul 14, 1928
Birthplace: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
The daughter of a Milwaukee physician, Nancy Olson attended UCLA, then briefly acted on stage before signing a Paramount Pictures contract in 1949. Her best screen assignment at Paramount was as self-effacing script clerk Betty Schaffer in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard. She went on to be teamed with her Boulevard co-star William Holden in Union Station (1950), Force of Arms (1951) and Submarine Command (1951). Olson briefly retired in the mid-1950s when she married songwriter Alan Jay Lerner (they later divorced; her second husband was record executive Alan Livingston). In 1960, Olson went back before the cameras as Betty Carlisle, ever-patient fiance of would-be inventor Ned Brainard (Fred MacMurray) in Disney's The Absent Minded Professor; she repeated this characterization in the 1963 sequel Son of Flubber. She went on to do a smattering of TV films, including the 1967 pilot of the Darren McGavin private eye series The Outsider. Nancy Olson also played continuing roles in the 1977 weekly Kingston: Confidential and the 1984 prime-time soaper Paper Dolls.
Photos
Highest Rated Movies
Filmography
Movies
| Credit | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14% | Dumbbells | Bianca | — | 2014 |
| 39% | Making Love | Christine | — | 1982 |
| 25% | Airport 1975 | Abbott's Mother | — | 1974 |
| No Score Yet | Snowball Express | Sue Baxter | — | 1972 |
| No Score Yet | Smith! | Norah Smith | — | 1969 |
| 86% | Son of Flubber | Betsy Brainard | — | 1963 |
| 83% | The Absent-Minded Professor | Betsy | — | 1961 |
| 86% | Pollyanna | Nancy Furman | — | 1960 |
| No Score Yet | Battle Cry | Mrs. Pat Rogers | — | 1955 |
| No Score Yet | So Big | Dallas O'Mara | — | 1953 |
| No Score Yet | Big Jim McLain | Nancy Vallon | — | 1952 |
| No Score Yet | Submarine Command (The Submarine Story) | Carol | — | 1951 |
| No Score Yet | Force Of Arms | Eleanor | — | 1951 |
| No Score Yet | Mr. Music | Katherine Holbrook | — | 1950 |
| 98% | Sunset Boulevard | Betty Schaefer | — | 1950 |
| No Score Yet | Union Station | Joyce Willecombe | — | 1950 |
| No Score Yet | Canadian Pacific | Cecille Gautier | — | 1949 |
TV
| Credit | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 80% |
Big Love 2006-2011 |
2010 |
|
| No Score Yet |
The Streets of San Francisco 1972-1977 |
Jeannie Morris |
1975 |
| No Score Yet |
Gunsmoke 1955-1975 |
Henrietta Donavan |
1972 |
| No Score Yet |
Alfred Hitchcock Presents 1955-1962 |
Jan Manning |
1959 |
QUOTES FROM Nancy Olson CHARACTERS
Pollyanna says: Well, I suppose I could be glad because...
Nancy Furman says: Yes, go ahead, darling.
Pollyanna says: No! It was a silly game! I hate it! I'll never want to play it again! Leave me alone!
Nancy Furman says: What did we bring her today?
Pollyanna says: Umm, calf's foot jelly.
Nancy Furman says: You wait and see. She's bound to wish she had chicken, and if we brought her chicken, she'd want she had lamb broth. She's just cantankerous!
Nancy Furman says: Just this one, Mrs. Snow, and I wish this were over with.
Pollyanna says: What's wrong with her?
Nancy Furman says: She's just plain crabby that's what's wrong with her. You never met anyone so cantankerous. If it was Friday, she'd wish it was Tuesday.
Pollyanna says: I like your cousin, Fred, very much.
Nancy Furman says: Oh, he's alright, I guess.
Pollyanna says: He's very handsome and he has a nice smile, but there's something sort of, I don't know, funny about him.
Nancy Furman says: What do you mean "funny?"
Nancy Furman says: What do you mean 'funny?'
Nancy Furman says: What do you mean 'funny'?
Pollyanna says: I know what it is! It's his name. He doesn't look at all like a Fred.
Nancy Furman says: What?!
Pollyanna says: He looks more like a George, to me! [Pollyanna runs off]
Nancy Furman says: Pollyanna! [Nancy chases after her] Wait a minute!
Tillie Lagerlof says: Who's gonna marry her?!
Nancy Furman says: She means Doctor Chilton.
Angelica says: Ha! Fat chance. Who'd wanna marry old pickled-face Harrington?