Nancy Kelly (March 25, 1921 – January 2, 1995) was an American actress, born in Lowell, Massachusetts. Kelly was a major movie leading lady in the 1930s, making 36 movies between 1926 and 1977, including portraying Tyrone Power's love interest in the classic Jesse James (1939), which also featured Henry Fonda, and playing opposite Spencer Tracy in Stanley and Livingstone later that same year.
Nancy was a child star, who had made so many movies by the time she was nine years old, that Film Daily called her "the most photographed child in America due to commercial posing." She also played Dorothy Gale in a 1933 to 1934 radio show based on the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and was the older sister of actor Jack Kelly, star of the 1957 television series Maverick.
As an adult actress, she was a two-time winner of the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre as well as a Tony Award winner for her performance in The Bad Seed, which she followed up by starring in the film version in 1956 and receiving a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also starred on television, including the leading role in "The Lonely Hour" for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1963.
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Nancy Kelly has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Blvd.
She was the older sister of actor Jack Kelly, who played "Bart Maverick" alongside James Garner and Roger Moore in the television series Maverick (1957-1962). Nancy Kelly and Jack Kelly strongly resembled each other in their facial structures but never acted together in a film. Nancy Kelly's acting career was much more successful than her younger brother's, whose career gradually faded out after Maverick.
On her passing in 1995 from complications of diabetes, Nancy Kelly was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.
