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Nina Foch, actress and influential coach and teacher, dies at 84
Nina Foch, a veteran actress from Hollywood's film noir era of the 1940s who became a widely respected acting coach and teacher of directors, died Friday at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. She was 84.
The cause was complications of long-term myelodysplasia, a blood disorder, according to her son, Dr. Dirk De Brito.
Foch became ill Thursday while teaching "Directing the Actor," a popular course at USC's School of Cinematic Arts, where she taught for 40 years. She also offered the class for years at the American Film Institute.
Her students have included a number of accomplished directors, including Randal Kleiser, Amy Heckerling, Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz.
"She was one of those few teachers who was truly life-changing," said Herskovitz, who with his partner, Zwick, created and produced the critically acclaimed television shows "thirtysomething," "My So-Called Life" and "Once and Again."
"She had a point of view that was so profound and so provocative that it forced you to really reassess not just your thoughts about filmmaking but your whole approach to life and relationships."
Herskovitz, who met Zwick in Foch's class at AFI in the 1970s, said her philosophy was difficult to boil down because it stemmed from her insights into how people behave and think and what they believe. "She had a wonderful phrase that used to torment us -- "idiosyncratic contrapuntal juxtaposition," he recalled Friday. "What it meant was what happens in life is often the opposite of what you think would happen, so the way you play a scene is often the opposite of the way you would think. . . . I'm not exaggerating when I say that what she taught us comes up literally weekly in our careers. She so influenced us in our way of looking at material, directing, even writing."
Foch began her career as an actress whose most memorable work was in the B-movie classic "My Name Is Julia Ross" (1945), directed by Joseph H. Lewis. Foch played a young woman who takes a job as secretary for a wealthy family and becomes ensnared in a plot to cover up a murder.
Her standout acting inspired a recent UCLA Film & Television Archive series celebrating Columbia's "noir girls" of the '40s. In addition to "Julia Ross," the series featured such films as Fritz Lang's "Human Desire" and Rudolph Mate's "The Dark Past," which starred Foch opposite William Holden and Lee J. Cobb.
"She's really the reason we did these films," Andrea Alsberg, who curated the UCLA series, told The Times in October. "Nina is this tall, cool drink of water. She's not a dame, like Gloria Grahame. She's got class. 'Julia Ross' is a great, Hitchcockian thriller. And it's Nina that brings it alive. It's only 65 minutes, but you want to look at her the whole time."
Foch was born Nina Consuelo Maud Fock on April 20, 1924, in Leyden, Netherlands. Her father was the renowned Dutch composer-conductor Dirk Fock; her mother was actress Consuelo Flowerton. They divorced when Foch was a toddler.
She later moved to New York with her mother and enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She also studied Method acting with Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler.
She changed her last name to Foch when her movie career began in 1941 at Warner Bros. She eventually worked under contract at several major studios, including Columbia, MGM, Universal, 20th Century Fox and United Artists.
Her film credits include "A Song to Remember" (1945), "An American in Paris" (1951), "Scaramouche" (1952) and "The Ten Commandments" (1956). She earned an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress in "Executive Suite" (1954).
Foch appeared on Broadway, including the 1947 hit "John Loves Mary." She briefly tried directing, serving as assistant director to George Stevens on "The Diary of Anne Frank" (1959), but turned to television acting when it became clear to her that the time was not ripe for a female director.
Her lengthy television credits include "Prescription: Murder" (1968), which launched the popular "Columbo" detective series starring Peter Falk, the miniseries "War and Remembrance" (1989) and episodes of "Gunsmoke," "Bonanza," "The Mod Squad," "Dharma & Greg" and "NCIS." She earned an Emmy nomination for best supporting actress in a drama series in 1980 for her work on an episode of "Lou Grant."
Foch ran her own actors studio in Hollywood for many years and taught two classes a week at USC, where her course was a requirement for a masters in fine arts.
"Nina taught our students one of the most difficult skills in the cinematic arts: how to turn the words on the page into compelling performances," Elizabeth M. Daley, dean of USC's School of Cinematic Arts, said in a statement Friday. "She inspired and influenced generations of USC women and men, who in turn went on to shape direction of both cinema and television."
"Believe it or not, teaching is the most rewarding thing I do," Foch told United Press International in 1994. "It has been the most successful thing I've done in my life."
Thrice married and divorced, she is survived by three grandchildren, in addition to her son.
Elaine Woo Los Angeles Times 6 December 2008
One of the most disturbing of the Grimm stories - murder, cannibalism and death from above. Birds throughout the Grimm canon are positively Hitchcockian.
1.18.2012
For WH: Drama
I was on the bus to work this morning and saw my reflection. It reminded me of a master of drama and suspense: Alfred Hitchcock. Please ignore the graffiti...
© Linda Plaisted
More work at www.manymuses.com
Birds. Why birds? Why the variations on a theme?
When I was a child I had continually recurring dreams of flight with such detail that I could practically count the shingles on the roof of my childhood home. In my dreams I could soar, hover, levitate and generally rise above. Yes, I know there is considerable fodder there for psychoanalysis. Dig in.
Now, it seems that ever since moving to the country I seem to attract the attention of low-flying, theatrical birds. Not in a spooky, ominous Hitchcockian sort of way, but rather in a familial, how do you do, nice to see you again sort of way. Flocks and pairs, and single solitary aviators, they wheel and dance and turn circles overheard, seemingly for my amusement and their own. They fly so close that I can actually see their eyes and the individual feathers of their wings. Everywhere I go around here, I am greeted by these familiar friends who just happen to have feathers. One day I will capture that with my camera, but for now it is enough to experience it and capture it as memory.
This winged neighbor flew near yesterday morning while I was out shooting in the countryside, and the long-exposure was shot during last night's chill and starry skyshow.
© Linda Plaisted
More work at www.manymuses.com
The old wall phone in my upstairs laundry room.
I have never used it. Not once.
This is not a scene from a Burmese Hitchcockian horror movie; one of the local time-killers is to feed seagulls on inter village boat trips.
Inle Lake, Burma
Ducks in Queens Park. The only snag to feeding this lot is the Hitchcockian pigeons and seagulls that spot you from miles around and descend at speed.
The birds! Houston is the largest US city that has grown without urban planning. It is basically one strip mall shopping center after another. I don't think anyone was planning for these grackles to take over either...
Houston is the largest US city that has grown without urban planning. It is basically one strip mall shopping center after another. I don't think anyone was planning for these grackles to take over either...anyone with a hitchcockian trauma for birds would have freaked out....
Okay movie buffs, that's me (see swaddled leg) with my broken ankle in a wheelchair, taking a photo of a scene in a movie about a photographer with a broken leg and in a wheelchair who witnesses a murder from his window. I can tell you, nothing quite that interesting is happening outside my window (except for some great goldfinch and butterfly photos that, alas, have gotten away). What movie am I watching?
I was trying to finish going through my Alaska photos (yes, still...), and I found this one. I had forgotten about it.
I like it.
At the top of monument by Pudding lane having a Hitchcockian Vertigo moment. For vertigo sufferers would be a right 'mare!
I just love the Alfred Hitchcockian appeal of this weird photograph. Literally as I was walking past, I saw these three standing there staring up into the house, which looked for all the world to be abandoned. There is something spooky about that black hole in the driveway, even my scanner couldnt pick up on what was going on. There is someone in the car. But the car is completely sealed by overgrowth, You can see something on the neg but the scanner cant pick it up regardless of what setting I used. The house is on a cross roads, every haunted structure Ive ever seen or heard bout is on or near intersections, at the end of streets or avenues...
I was standing on the sidewalk, when suddenly about 20 black birds swooped down into this little tree, covered in red berries. a very Hitchcockian experience
My homage to the Hitchcockian horror film, "The Birds"... by... Alfered Hitchcock;The Birds". One of my favorites of his. There is no way to describe my fear as 3,000-plus birds flew over my head and around me. The scarriest part was the "plopping" noise the could be heard all around me. Good thing I had a hoodie on!!
Workflow:
ACR: Converted to black and white. Increased Contrast and Clarity. Straightened and Cropped.
Photoshop: Resized and added Vignette and Noise!
149/365-2
The starlings were massing in the yard this afternoon and the noise was positively Hitchcockian. I ran back inside when they all suddenly took off flying -- no sense tempting the fates by hanging around outside.
Mr. Kapoozle was having a sweet time at the beach, when suddenly...da da da dooom! A Hitchcockian swarm of flies surrounded him!
I cropped these three silhouettes out of another shot containing 2.7 trillion birds. As individuals, they're very pretty. But by the zillions, they're almost a little frightening.
Brian De Palma goes right for the audience jugular in Dressed to Kill, a stylish exercise in ersatz-Hitchcock suspense-terror. Despite some major structural weaknesses, the cannily manipulated combination of mystery, gore and kinky sex adds up to a slick commercial package.
The film begins with a steamy auto-erotic shower scene and segues to a session between Angie Dickinson and psychiatrist Michael Caine.
Matters begin in earnest when Dickinson enters an elevator and is razor-sliced to death. Enter high-priced hooker Nancy Allen who finds the body and is caught razor-in-hand with no alibi, smack into the arch Hitchcockian position of a circumstantially involved 'innocent' forced to clear herself by discovering the real murderer.
Instances of patent manipulation or cheating (and the film's stolen ending from Carrie) are generally more annoying in retrospect than while they're happening. Dickinson, who has an abdominal stand-in for the steamier segments, is used exceptionally well as the sexually torn, quickly disposed-of heroine. Caine, until the film's internal logic breaks down, is excellent as the suave shrink.
Filmways/Cinema 77. Director Brian De Palma; Producer George Litto; Screenplay Brian De Palma; Camera Ralf Bode; Editor Jerry Greenberg, Bill Pankow; Music Pino Donaggio; Art Director Gary Weist
from VARIETY 1980