NANCY MARCHAND Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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NANCY MARCHAND

Name: Nancy Marchand                                                               
Born: 19 June 1928 Buffalo, New York, United States                               
Died: 18 June 2000 Stratford, Connecticut, United States                           
                                                                                   
Nancy Marchand (June 19, 1928 - June 18, 2000) was an American actress. Marchand   
had a long career in Broadway and off-Broadway theatre and on television; she     
also made some films.                                                             
                                                                                   
Marchand was perhaps best known for her Emmy Award-nominated role of acerbic       
family matriarch Livia Soprano, mother of Tony Soprano, on the HBO series, The     
Sopranos. She created the role of Hester Crane, mother of Frasier Crane, on       
Cheers, and the role of Clara in the original 1954 live television production of   
Marty. She also is remembered for the 1970s series Lou Grant, in which she         
starred, opposite Edward Asner, as autocratic newspaper publisher "Mrs. Margaret   
Pynchon," a role that earned her four Emmy Awards as Best Supporting Actress in   
a Dramatic Series.                                                                 
                                                                                   
Marchand was born in Buffalo, New York, the daughter of Marjorie (née Freeman),   
a pianist, and Raymond L. Marchand, a physician. A lifelong chain smoker,         
Marchand died of emphysema and lung cancer the day before her 72nd birthday in     
Stratford, Connecticut, and as a result her character's death was written into     
the third season story line of The Sopranos. Her husband of 48 years, actor Paul   
Sparer, died of cancer in 1999, not long before her death. She was survived by     
her three children and many grandchildren.