Biography

Movie and television actress Nancy Guild was a contract player at 20th Century-Fox, which reminded the public that her surname "rhymes with wild" after she was signed to a seven-year contract in 1946. The studio bosses must have changed their mind how they would position her as she typically played demure, ladylike roles.

She made her debut as a night club chanteuse in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Quelque part dans la nuit (1946), which was marketed with newspaper ads bearing the "Nancy Guild Rhymes with Wild" catch line. She followed that up with the Philip Marlowe picture La pièce maudite (1947), based on Raymond Chandler's novel "The High Window."

On the rebound from an engagement with producer Edward Lasker, Guild married fellow 20th Century-Fox contract player Chuck Russell in early 1947. The following year, they appeared together in the Dan Dailey musical Give My Regards to Broadway (1948).

Leaving Fox, she co-starred with Orson Welles in Gregory Ratoff's Cagliostro (1949) before moving on to Universal Studios, where she appeared in Deux nigauds contre l'homme invisible (1951). In 1953, she appeared opposite a talking mule in Francis Covers the Big Town (1953), her last picture until Des amis comme les miens (1971).

Having divorced Russell in 1950, Guild married the successful Broadway impresario Ernest H. Martin, the three-time Tony Award-winning producer of Blanches colombes et vilains messieurs (1955), La Mélodie du bonheur (1965), and Le forum en folie (1966) among others, in 1951. She appeared occasionally on television, retiring after an appearance on Robert Montgomery Presents (1950) in 1955. She did return to the silver screen in 1971, in Otto Preminger's Des amis comme les miens (1971)

She divorced Martin in 1975, marrying photojournalist John Bryson in 1978. Her final marriage lasted 17 years. She divorced Bryson in 1995. In all, she was both married and divorced three times.

Nancy Guild died in East Hampton, New York on August 16, 1999, at the age of 73. She was survived by her three daughters and three granddaughters.

- IMDb mini biography by: Jon C. Hopwood