Nolan, Kathleen (1933—)

American actress who was the first woman president of the Screen Actors Guild. Born on September 27, 1933, in St. Louis, Missouri.

Best known for her role as Kate, the spunky farm wife on the popular television series "The Real McCoys" (1957–63), actress Kathleen Nolan was also the first woman president of the Screen Actors Guild, a position she held from 1975 to 1980.

Born in 1933 into a St. Louis-based showbusiness family, Nolan began performing with her parents on a Mississippi showboat as soon as she could walk. After high school, she left for New York, where she studied with renowned Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse and was an early member of the Actors Studio. In 1954, she landed a role on the live television series "Jamie," which starred Brandon de Wilde. She appeared on Broadway that same year, as Wendy in the musical version of James M. Barrie's Peter Pan, starring Mary Martin . Nolan subsequently reprised her role in two television productions of the popular show.

In 1957, Nolan auditioned and won the role of Kate on "The Real McCoys," a gentle comedy about a rural family struggling to make ends meet. The show, starring veteran actor Walter Brennan as the patriarch Amos McCoy and Richard Crenna as Kate's husband Luke, was the forerunner of such family-oriented programs as "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Petticoat Junction." Nolan thought it was the universal problems that faced the McCoys that made the show so compelling. "We had a very large following of everyday folks" who could relate to the fact "that we saved the money in a cookie jar and that we had to have a discussion about what it was going to be spent on. I feel that the show had this real connection and honesty about it."

Nolan decided the leave the show after the fifth season, thinking it would be a wise career move to depart while she was "riding high." Although the series lasted for another season, Crenna noted that it was never the same after Nolan left. "That relationship was very special. The cast was very sad to see Kathleen leave. We missed her." The actress subsequently starred in the series "Broadside" and also made numerous guest appearances on other series, including "Charlie's Angels," "Bewitched," and "The Big Valley."

In 1975, Kathleen Nolan was the first woman elected to serve as president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), the union of motion picture performers, which was established in 1933 and is affiliated with the AAAA and the AFL. That year, despite the union's history of predominantly male leadership, Nolan had petitioned as an independent candidate and won with a two-to-one victory margin. She also continued to act and direct on stage, screen, and television, and in February 2000 guest starred as the meddling matriarch Amanda Wingfield in a revival of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, staged by the PlayMakers Repertory Company on the campus of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The actress has homes in New York and Los Angeles.

Barbara Morgan , Melrose, Massachusetts