Nada Rowand

Nada Rowand, born November 30, 1936, in Sparta, Illinois, is an American actress whose career has spanned Broadway, television, and film. Raised in Melvin, Illinois, as an only child, Rowand began singing at an exceptionally early age. As a young girl she competed in 4-H club performance contests and formed a vocal group with high school friends called The Cloverettes, who were booked to appear on The Original Amateur Hour, hosted by Ted Mack. After graduating high school, Rowand enrolled at the University of Illinois as a music major, then relocated to New York with the intention of pursuing a career as an opera singer.

When an opera career in New York did not materialize, Rowand turned to musical theater. Her early Broadway work included a singing role in the original production of The Unsinkable Molly Brown, which opened in 1960. During this period she also appeared on Broadway in Milk and Honey, where the show's star, opera singer Robert Weede, became her mentor. Rowand subsequently moved to San Francisco to study with Weede, then traveled to Germany in pursuit of an opera career. When those plans did not come to fruition, she returned to New York and shifted her focus to acting, studying with Uta Hagen.

In 1966, Rowand played a townswoman in the original Broadway production of Walking Happy. Her stage work outside of Broadway encompassed a wide range of productions, including The Marriage of Figaro, Ladies in Waiting, Orlando, The Rainmaker, Hansel and Gretel, The Iceman Cometh, The Price, Mrs. Warren's Profession, Bells Are Ringing, Blithe Spirit, The Diary of Anne Frank, Dance of Death, The Man Who Came to Dinner, and Guys and Dolls. In 1970 and 1972, she participated in USO tours in Vietnam.

Rowand's screen work during the 1970s included guest appearances on the television series Nancy and Bewitched. She played Mother in the 1975 short drama Doubletalk, a production addressing Alzheimer's disease that received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. That same year she appeared in the film Super Seal, co-starring with Sterling Holloway. In 1978, she co-starred with Sylvester Stallone in F.I.S.T.

Rowand returned to Broadway in 1979 as a standby for the roles of Elizabeth and the Duchess of York in a revival of Richard III starring Al Pacino. In 1980, she appeared in two productions at the Humana Festival at the Actors Theatre of Louisville: as Louise in Adele Edling Shank's Sunrise/Sunset and as Yvonne in Kent Broadhurst's They're Coming to Make It Brighter. On March 3, 1981, she opened on Broadway in The Survivor at the Morosco Theatre, playing Sevek's Mother. Later that year she appeared as Marianne in Gethsemane Springs at the Spectrum Theater in May, and as Helen in The Midnight Visitor at St. Peter's Hall in December.

In 1984, Rowand was cast as Kate Rescott on the ABC daytime soap opera Loving, a character she would portray through the series finale in November 1995. Kate Rescott was a widow and family matriarch whose daughter Ava Rescott was played by Lisa Peluso. The character owned a pie shop, converted her home into a boarding house, and eventually entered a romantic relationship with Louie Slavinsky, played by Bernard Barrow. The role became one of Rowand's most sustained and prominent credits, and the character's surname was later updated to Slavinsky. During her years on Loving, Rowand also appeared in the television film Blind Alleys (1985), the feature film Masquerade (1988) with Rob Lowe, and guest-starred on Highway to Heaven and Kate & Allie. She later guest-starred on Law & Order as well.

Also during the 1980s, Rowand opened three retail stores under the name Sonrisa, selling works by contemporary Mexican artists and craftsmen, with locations in Taos, New Mexico, and Los Angeles, California. Business partners managed the shops while she was committed to Loving.

Rowand's final Broadway credit came in 1997, when she served as an understudy for the roles of Lily Dale Kidder and Miss Lacey in The Young Man from Atlanta. Subsequent stage work included starring as Louise Nevelson in Embers at the Chelsea Playhouse in 2002, appearing in the musical Mimi le Duck at the Adirondack Theatre Festival in July 2004, and playing Elizabeth in Kate Hawley's Complications from a Fall at Center Stage Theater in Santa Cruz, California, in 2015. The role of Elizabeth was described as an elderly mother with memory loss whose caretaker children are in conflict with one another.