Nancy Dussault

Nancy Dussault, born June 30, 1936, in Pensacola, Florida, is an American actress and singer whose career has spanned more than five decades across Broadway, television, and film.

Dussault's Broadway career ran from 1959 to 1993 and encompassed a range of notable productions. Her work in Do Re Mi earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical in 1961, the same year she received a Theatre World Award. She performed alongside Phil Silvers and Nancy Walker in that production, and her performance was preserved on the cast recording. In 1962, she stepped into the role of Maria in the Broadway production of The Sound of Music. A second Tony nomination followed for her starring role in Bajour in 1965. She later appeared in Side by Side by Sondheim on Broadway and took over the role of the Witch in Into the Woods, a run that lasted from 1987 to 1989. Additional Broadway credits include Jule's Friends at the Palace and The Sisters Rosensweig. Dussault also performed with the City Center Gilbert and Sullivan NYC Company, directed by Dorothy Raedler, alongside opera singers including Nico Castel, Muriel Costa-Greenspon, and Frank Porretta, Sr.

Outside of Broadway, Dussault's stage work included Quality Street in 1965 at the Bucks County Playhouse in Pennsylvania and the title role in Peter Pan in 1978 at the Melody Top Theatre in Wisconsin and Sacramento Music Circus. She later appeared at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco as Mrs. Peachum in The Threepenny Opera in 1999 and as Toinette in Molière's The Imaginary Invalid in 2007.

On television, Dussault made frequent guest appearances as a vocalist and dancer on variety programs during the 1960s, including The Ed Sullivan Show, The Carol Burnett Show, and The Garry Moore Show. She served as part of the original anchor team on ABC's Good Morning America when the program launched in 1975, paired with David Hartman. She was a regular cast member during the first two seasons of The New Dick Van Dyke Show and also appeared on the CBS game show Match Game. In 1973, Carl Reiner developed a pilot called The Nancy Dussault Show as a vehicle for her, though the project was never picked up. She played a central role in the 1975 Barney Miller episode "The Courtesans," a production that drew significant attention when creator and producer Danny Arnold threatened to leave the show over network censorship of a line in the episode; according to Hal Linden, the resulting publicity contributed to the series' ratings survival. Dussault guest-starred in an episode of the 1979 NBC anthology series $weepstake$ and was the first actress to portray Theresa Stemple, the mother of Jamie Stemple Buchman, in the first season of the NBC series Mad About You. In January 1997, she played the mayor of Metropolis in the Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman episode "Lethal Weapon," the twelfth episode of the fourth season. Her most prominent television role was that of Muriel Rush, Ted Knight's wife and a photographer, on the situation comedy Too Close for Comfort, which ran from 1980 to 1987.

In film, Dussault appeared in Arthur Hiller's 1979 comedy The In-Laws, playing Carol Kornpett, the wife of Alan Arkin's character Sheldon S. Kornpett, D.D.S.