Nancy Kulp
Nancy Jane Kulp (
August 28,
1921 –
February 3,
1991) was an American
actress best known as "Miss Jane Hathaway" on the popular television series
The Beverly Hillbillies.
Kulp was born into an upper middle class family in
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. After obtaining bachelor's degree in journalism from
Florida State University and her Master's at the
University of Miami, she volunteered for service in
World War II in the
Navy's WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service) earning several decorations. During her Naval service Nancy earned the American Campaign Medal; National Defense Medal, and the Good Conduct Medal.
She moved to
Hollywood to work in a studio
publicity department, but director
George Cukor convinced her that she should work in front of the camera.
Thus began a career as a
character actor. Her
movie debut was in
1951 in
The Company She Keeps. She appeared in subsequent films, including
Shane,
Sabrina and
A Star is Born. In
1955, she joined the cast of
The Bob Cummings Show (aka Love That Bob) with
Bob Cummings as pith-helmeted neighborhood bird-watcher, Pamela Livingston.
In 1962, she landed the role of Jane Hathaway, the sex-starved perennial spinster, on The Beverly Hillbillies. She remained with the show until its cancellation in 1971. In 1967, she received an
Emmy Award nomination for her role.
She returned to movies in
Forever, Darling,
The Three Faces of Eve and
The Parent Trap, before
The Beverly Hillbillies made her so widely popular.
In
1984, Kulp ran for the
U.S. House of Representatives as a
Democrat from
Pennsylvania, but was unsuccessful. As an opponent of a Republican incumbent in a Republican district in a year in which Ronald Reagan won a landslide victory, Kulp was the underdog.
Hillbillies co-star
Buddy Ebsen supported her
Republican opponent, incumbent
Bud Shuster. Ebsen went so far as to tape an ad for Shuster, labeling Kulp as "too
liberal." Ebsen claimed she was exploiting her celebrity status and didn't know the issues.
In what Hollywood biographer
Boze Hadleigh claims is an interview he conducted with Kulp in 1987 that was published after her death, she purportedly admitted to "swinging both ways" (meaning she was
bisexual). She died of cancer in California at the age of 69.
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Nancy Kulp profile, NNDB.
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Nancy Kulp info.
