Nan Martin (July 15, 1927 – March 4, 2010) was an American actress who starred in movies and on television.

Life and career

Born in Decatur, Illinois and raised in Santa Monica, California, she went to the Santa Monica High School.

Her first film role was The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956). Her other film roles included The Mugger (1958), For Love of Ivy (1968), Goodbye Columbus (1969), Doctor Detroit (1983), All of Me (1984), and Chuck Russell's cult film A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) where she played the role of Amanda Krueger, the mother of killer Freddy Krueger. Her last film role is in 2005's Thicker than Water.

Martin starred on Mr. Sunshine. Her other well-known roles were in the 1983 miniseries The Thorn Birds and on the soap opera Santa Barbara. She had a recurring role on the ABC hit TV series The Drew Carey Show as Mrs. Lauder. She made many guest appearances on various television series, some of those appearances include Ben Casey, The Untouchables, The Twilight Zone, two episodes of " The Fugitive " , Star Trek: The Next Generation as Victoria Miller in the season 1 episode "Haven", and Rose, the secretary of murderer Alex Brady in the Columbo television movie, Murder, Smoke and Shadows. In 1965, she played co-murderer Beth Fuller in the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Fatal Fortune".

She appeared on two episodes of The Golden Girls: first as the mean-spirited and nasty Frieda Claxton, who was told to drop dead by Rose Nylund, which she did. She also portrayed Philomena, a friend of Sophia Petrillo from Sicily, who claimed that Dorothy was really her daughter and not Sophia's. One month after her appearance on The Golden Girls, she appeared as Valerie's mean and nasty chain-smoking Aunt Josephine on The Hogan Family. In the middle of the episode, Valerie comes home and tells Mike, "We lost Aunt Josephine at the supermarket." When inquiring about what happened, Valerie said that she and Josephine were in the express check-out (10 items or less). Valerie explained, "The gentleman in front of us had two six-packs of beer and Josephine insisted it was twelve items" and in the middle of her rage, she drops dead and falls into the candy display.

Her first husband was musical composer Robert Emmett Dolan, whom she married on March 17, 1948; they had one son, Casey Martin Dolan. Her second husband, Harry Gesner, is the father of her younger son, actor Zen Gesner.

She died Thursday, March 4, 2010, at her Malibu home. She was 82. Martin suffered from emphysema.