जीवनी

A skin cancer survivor at 24.

Miss Florida 1976

Her acting mentor is the late Andy Griffith.

Best known by the public as Ben Matlock's law partner, Michelle Thomas, on TV's Matlock (1986), Nancy spends much of her time as an author of spiritual books and a public speaker.

Modeled for and claimed in Penthouse Magazine, her legs were the ones used on the poster for the 1981 Jame Bond film 'For Your Eyes Only' which featured then 007 Roger Moore famously standing between.

I struggled as a young girl, feeling very rejected, very ridiculed because of my appearance. Then, irony of ironies, after blossoming but still never feeling good enough, I got into the most rejection-prone occupations: model and actress.

I wouldn't be the person I am today if it weren't for the painful things that I've gone through in life. God has used them to develop what could never have been formed in me in any other way.

[on the ranch she lives in]: We had a vision to create a place where believers could come to rest, rejuvenate and heal and where the artistic community could come to work on creative projects. It's a place of conception of dreams and vision. As time passed, the ache I had for children began to lift from me.

[on who has been the most influential person in her life]: My mother. She's the funniest human being I know as well as the most capable, strongest, most optimistic and incredibly talented. She's given me a lot to aspire to.

[on writing "Beauty by the Book"]: In college I began to blossom, I grew into my 5-foot-9-inch frame. When I did, boys began to notice, and their attention made me feel good about myself for the first time... My insecurities and low self-image were still there; they were just hidden behind the facade of 'pretty' and 'popular'.