Nancy Kovack

Nancy Kovack, born March 11, 1936, in Flint, Michigan, is a retired American film and television actress. Her father, Michael A. Kovack, managed a General Motors plant. With an IQ of 152, Kovack graduated high school early and enrolled at the University of Michigan at age 15, completing her degree in 1955 at age 19.

Approaching acting as a deliberate professional pursuit, Kovack built her public profile through modeling and beauty competitions before becoming one of the Glee Girls for Jackie Gleason and a hostess on the game show Beat the Clock. In 1958, she appeared in the original Broadway production of The Disenchanted. As her visibility grew, she transitioned into Hollywood films, with an early screen credit in Strangers When We Meet (1960), alongside Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak.

Among her most recognized early film roles was the high priestess Medea in Jason and the Argonauts (1963). Kovack went on to appear in Diary of a Madman (1963) with Vincent Price, The Outlaws Is Coming (1965) with The Three Stooges, Sylvia (1965) with Carroll Baker, The Great Sioux Massacre (1965), The Silencers (1966) with Dean Martin, Tarzan and the Valley of Gold (1966) with Mike Henry, Frankie and Johnny (1966) with Elvis Presley, and Carl Reiner's directorial debut, Enter Laughing (1967). She spent two and a half years in Iran, where she starred in three films, returning to the United States in 1968.

Kovack was also a frequent presence on television, with appearances on Perry Mason, Batman, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Get Smart, 12 O'Clock High, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Burke's Law, The Invaders, Family Affair, The Name of the Game, and Hawaii Five-O, among others. On Bewitched, she played multiple characters across three episodes, including Darrin Stephens' ex-girlfriend Sheila Sommers and an Italian client named Clio Vanita. In the 1968 Star Trek episode "A Private Little War," she portrayed a native medicine woman and femme fatale. That same year, she received a 1969 Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for her work on Mannix. Her final film credit was Marooned (1969), a science-fiction drama featuring Gregory Peck and Gene Hackman. She later appeared, billed as Nancy Mehta, in the 1975 television movie Ellery Queen, also known as Too Many Suspects.

In 1969, Kovack married conductor Zubin Mehta, who served as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and subsequently the New York Philharmonic. Kovack stepped away from her acting career primarily as a result of the marriage, choosing to focus on her life with Mehta. Until 2006, the couple spent portions of each year in Munich, Germany, where Mehta held the position of music director of the Bavarian State Opera. As of 1978, Kovack was reported to be a Christian Scientist. In the early 1990s, Susan McDougal worked as Kovack's personal assistant; following the end of that employment, Kovack pursued legal action against McDougal for alleged embezzlement. McDougal was acquitted on all twelve charges in 1998, and a subsequent malicious prosecution suit filed by McDougal in 1999 concluded in a settlement.