Denise Nickerson

Denise Marie Nickerson was born on April 1, 1957, in New York City, the daughter of Florence Bickford, a clerical worker, and Fred Nickerson, a mail carrier. She had an older sister, Carol. The family relocated to Miami, where Nickerson appeared in a television commercial for a Florida heating company at the age of two. At four, she was spotted at a fashion show by Broadway theatre producer Zev Buffman of the Neighborhood Playhouse drama school, an encounter that set her professional career in motion.

Her stage work began in earnest in 1962, when she was five years old, appearing in a production of Peter Pan at Miami's Coconut Grove Playhouse alongside Betsy Palmer, in the role of Wendy Darling's daughter, Jane. Buffman selected her to continue with the production on the road, a run that lasted until she was nine. Her parents subsequently moved the family back to New York City. Nickerson went on to appear on Broadway between 1967 and 1969, with credits including the drama Our Town and the musical Sherry!. In 1971, at thirteen, she was cast as Dolores Haze in the musical Lolita, My Love, replacing original actress Annette Ferra during the production's Boston run. The show closed on the road before reaching Broadway.

Television work brought Nickerson her earliest screen exposure, with appearances on The Doctors as Kate Harris, on The New Phil Silvers Show, and in an unsold pilot called Rome Sweet Rome opposite Bill Bixby. Her career gained significant momentum in 1968 when she joined the ABC Daytime soap opera Dark Shadows, where she played the recurring characters Amy Jennings, Nora Collins, and Amy Collins through 1970. That same period saw her appear in the 1971 television movie The Neon Ceiling.

Nickerson's most widely recognized screen role came in 1971, when she was cast as gum-chewing Violet Beauregarde in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, the film adaptation of Roald Dahl's novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. From 1972 to 1973, she joined the cast of The Electric Company as Allison, a member of the Short Circus music group, with producers featuring her as lead vocalist on several songs, including "The Sweet Sweet Sway." She also guest-starred in a final-season episode of The Brady Bunch titled "Two Petes in a Pod," playing Pamela Phillips, one of two simultaneous dates for Peter Brady. She auditioned for the role of Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist, a part that ultimately went to Linda Blair. Also in 1974, she played Sophie Pennington in the unsold television pilot If I Love You, Am I Trapped Forever?, based on M. E. Kerr's novel, alongside Teddy Eccles. She created the role of Liza Walton on the CBS Daytime soap opera Search for Tomorrow, remaining with the series until producers chose to age the character into a romantic lead.

In 1973, Nickerson starred in the television movie The Man Who Could Talk to Kids opposite Peter Boyle and Scott Jacoby. In 1975, she appeared in the satirical beauty-pageant film Smile as Miss San Diego Shirley Tolstoy, a cast that also included Melanie Griffith and Annette O'Toole. Her final acting credits before leaving the profession came in 1978, with the film Zero to Sixty, opposite Darren McGavin and Sylvia Miles, and the television film Child of Glass.

After turning twenty-one, Nickerson left acting. She began nursing school but ultimately pursued a career as a receptionist and later as an office manager and accountant in a doctor's office. In later years she made sporadic television appearances, including a spot on the 2000–2002 revival of To Tell the Truth. In 2001, she appeared in the documentary Pure Imagination: The Story of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, directed by J.M. Kenny, and in 2003 she and several Willy Wonka castmates were featured in the British documentary series After They Were Famous, also directed by Kenny. In 2011, she joined fellow cast members from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory for an episode of Top Chef: Just Desserts, and portions of that cast reunited again in 2011 and 2015 on The Today Show. Nickerson was also a longtime attendee at fan conventions for both Willy Wonka and Dark Shadows.

Nickerson was married twice. Her first marriage, to Rick Keller in 1981, ended with his death two years later from a brain aneurysm. Her second marriage, to Mark Willard in 1995, produced one son, Joshua Nickerson; the couple divorced in 1998. In 1976, she was struck by a car while crossing the street and spent eight months in a full leg cast.

In June 2018, Nickerson suffered a severe stroke and was admitted to intensive care, later transferring to a rehabilitation center before returning home to her family's care in August of that year. In September 2018, her Willy Wonka co-stars Julie Dawn Cole and Paris Themmen visited her following her discharge from rehabilitation. On July 8, 2019, Nickerson was taken to a hospital in respiratory distress after an overdose of prescription medicines. She developed pneumonia while in intensive care, suffered a massive seizure the following day, and fell into a coma. With a do not resuscitate order in place, her family removed her from life support on July 10, 2019. She died that day from pneumonia at the age of sixty-two.