Carrie Nye

Infobox actor

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imagesize = 150px
caption =
birthname = Carolyn Nye McGeoy
birthdate = birth date|1936|10|14
birthplace = Greenwood, Mississippi, United States
deathdate = death date and age|2006|7|14|1936|10|14
deathplace = Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States
spouse = Dick Cavett
(1964-2006) (her death)

Carrie Nye (October 14, 1936 – July 14, 2006) was an American actress.

Biography

Early life

Nye was born Caroline Nye McGeoy in Greenwood, Mississippi; her father was a vice president of a local bank. She attended Stephens College and then went on to the Yale School of Drama.

Career

The majority of Nye's roles were on the stage. She joined the Williamstown Theater Festival in 1955 and portrayed a number of roles at the festival through the 1960s and 1970s. Among her credits were the leads in "The Skin of Our Teeth" and "A Streetcar Named Desire". She was also part of a team from the American Shakespeare Festival that performed "Troilus and Cressida" at the White House during the Kennedy administration. On Broadway, she made her debut in 1960 with a role in the play "The Second String". She was nominated for a Tony Award in 1965 for her role in "Half a Sixpence".

Nye made her feature film debut in "The Group", the film adaptation of Mary McCarthy's bestseller about a gaggle of Vassar students, which also starred Joan Hackett, Joanna Pettet, Candice Bergen, and Kathleen Widdoes). She was featured in a number of television movies during the 1970s, including "Screaming Skull" and "The Users".

She was a member of the cast of the 1973 television movie"Divorce His - Divorce Hers", which starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton; Nye later wrote a humorous essay for "Time" about the experience.

She was nominated for an Emmy Award for her portrayal of actress Tallulah Bankhead - an actress to whom Nye was often compared - in "The Scarlett O'Hara War".

In 1984, Nye was cast on the daytime soap opera "Guiding Light" as villainous real estate agent Susan Piper. Her character had a memorable death scene where she fell into quicksand. When Nye's friend Ellen Weston became head writer of "Guiding Light" in 2003, she penned another character for Nye. Despite acclaim for Nye's performance, the storyline was unpopular and Nye's character was written off shortly after.

Nye also played as Sylvia Grantham, in the classic 1982 horror film Creepshow

Personal life

Nye was married to Dick Cavett, whom she met at Yale, from June 4, 1964 until her death.

Nye and Cavett bought Tick Hall, a house in Montauk, New York designed by Stanford White. The house burned down in 1997, but with the assistance of architects and preservationists, she and Cavett built an exact replica of the house. Their accomplishment became the subject of a documentary film "" (2003).

Nye died on July 14, 2006 at her home in Manhattan, after a long illness due to lung cancer.

External links

* [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/17/arts/17nye.html "Carrie Nye, 69, Williamstown Festival Actress, Is Dead"] "New York Times"
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