Biography
Though an occasional bit player in films, character actress Carrie Nye enjoyed her broadest reception as a stage performer.
Born Carolyn Nye McGeoy in Greenwood, MS, on October 14, 1936, Nye began her career as a thespian around 1955 at the Williamstown Theater Festival, in Williamstown, northern Massachusetts. She moved to Manhattan five years later, where she made her Broadway debut in a stage adaptation of a
Colette novel, A Second String. Nye quickly became trademarked by her southern drawl and deadpan quips. She starred in numerous on and off-Broadway productions over the ensuing decades, such as the
Ruth Gordon-penned A Very Rich Woman (1965) and
Tom Stoppard's Real Inspector Hound (1972). She sporadically returned to Williamstown over the decades and became a key component of the festival.
Nye took her first film bow in
Sidney Lumet's 1966
The Group, with a cast that included
Candice Bergen,
Joanna Pettet,
Joan Hackett,
Elizabeth Hartman, and
Shirley Knight. Many additional cinematic and TV roles followed, including Diana Proctor in the 1972 Liz Taylor/
Richard Burton small-screen vehicle Divorce His, Divorce Hers, and Aldena Kittner in the 1979
Alan Alda/
Jerry Schatzberg effort
The Seduction of Joe Tynan. In the
Stephen King/George Romero omnibus effort
Creepshow (1982), Nye portrayed Sylvia Grantham, the woman unexpectedly terrorized when her nasty deceased husband returns in zombie form to claim his father's birthday cake. She also appeared in the
Shelley Long vehicle
Hello Again as Regina Holt. Nye won a Best Actress Emmy for the 1980 telemovie
The Scarlett O'Hara War.
Nye died of lung cancer on July 14, 2006. She was survived by her husband, talk show host
Dick Cavett. Nye met Cavett in the early '60s at Yale Drama School and they wed in 1964. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide