Nina Foch

Nina Foch (/fɒʃ/ FOSH; born Nina Consuelo Maud Fock; April 20, 1924 – December 5, 2008) was an American actress who later became a drama instructor. Her career spanned 6 decades, consisting of over 50 feature films and over 100 television credits. She was the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and a National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress. Foch established herself as a dramatic actress in the late 1940s, often playing cool, aloof sophisticates.

Nina Foch was born Nina Consuelo Maud Fock in 1924 in Leiden, South Holland, Netherlands, to American actress and singer Consuelo Flowerton and Dutch classical music conductor Dirk Foch [nl]. Her parents divorced when she was a toddler, and she and her mother moved to the United States, settling in New York City.

Throughout Foch's childhood, her mother encouraged her artistic talents; she learned piano and enjoyed art but was more interested in acting. After graduating from the Lincoln School, Foch attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, studying method acting under Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler.

After signing a contract with Columbia Pictures at age 19, Foch made her feature film debut in the studio's horror picture The Return of the Vampire (1943) with Bela Lugosi, subsequently appearing in Columbia's Cry of the Werewolf the next year. This was followed with a role in the biopic A Song to Remember (1945), the drama I Love a Mystery (1945); and a string of film noirs, including Escape in the Fog (1945), in which she starred as a woman who has a premonition of her kidnapping. The same year, she had the titular role in My Name is Julia Ross, a mystery about a woman who, after taking a new job working as a secretary for a family in London, awakens one morning to find herself with a different identity in a remote seaside house in rural Cornwall.

Next, Foch appeared in Johnny O'Clock (1947), The Dark Past (1948), The Undercover Man (1948), and Johnny Allegro (1949). During this time, she was also a regular in John Houseman's CBS Playhouse 90 television series.

Foch made her Broadway debut in the 1947 production of John Loves Mary, playing the titular Mary. She subsequently starred in Stratford and Broadway productions of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (1949) and King Lear (1950).

In 1951, Foch appeared with Gene Kelly in the musical An American in Paris, which was awarded the Best Picture Oscar that year. Foch also appeared in Scaramouche (1952) as Marie Antoinette. She returned to theater in 1955, appearing in a Off-Broadway production of Measure for Measure, followed by The Taming of the Shrew. Next, Foch starred in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956) as Bithiah, the pharaoh's daughter, who finds the infant Moses in the bulrushes, adopts him as her son, and joins him and the Hebrews in their exodus from Egypt. In 1957, Foch was honored by the Maryland State Council of the American Jewish Congress with a special award for her performance in The Ten Commandments.

Foch received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as a secretary in the boardroom drama Executive Suite (1954), starring William Holden, Fredric March, and Barbara Stanwyck. The same year Executive Suite was released, Foch married her first husband, actor James Lipton; their marriage spanned five years before ending in divorce in 1959. The same year, she married television writer Dennis de Brito, with whom she gave birth to one son, Dirk.