Carrie Nye, an actress who was married to television host Dick Cavett and was a regular presence on the stages of the famed Williamstown Theatre Festival, has died. She was 69.
Nye died Friday at her home in Manhattan of lung cancer.
Nye made her Broadway debut in 1960 in "A Second String," an adaptation of a novel by Colette, and went on to earn a Tony nomination five years later by playing a society lady in the Broadway musical "Half a Sixpence."
Nye appeared in numerous other Broadway productions, including "A Very Rich Woman" by Ruth Gordon, and a 1980 revival of "The Man Who Came to Dinner." She also performed off-Broadway, in Michael Cacoyannis' production of "The Trojan Women" in 1963 and Tom Stoppard's "Real Inspector Hound" in 1972.
But it was at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in northern Massachusetts where Nye spent much of her career, appearing in 24 of its productions over 31 years.
"Carrie Nye will be remembered as a woman whose vibrant spirit and wonderful acting in many roles enriched the Festival," said Roger Rees, Williamstown's artistic director. "On a personal note, I fondly remember many summer afternoons spent at her home in Montauk where she reminisced about Tennessee Williams' visits to the Berkshires and his great affection for the Williamstown Theatre Festival."
Her first appearance at Williamstown was as Margaret in "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof" in 1958, and other memorable roles included Hedda Gabler, Blanche Dubois in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and Anya in "Nude With Violin." Her last Williamstown appearance was as Zelda Fitzgerald in "Clothes For A Summer Hotel" in 1989.
Nye met Cavett while they both were attending the Yale Drama School. The couple first went to Williamstown together for the summer theater festival in 1959.
They married in 1964, and bought Tick Hall, a shingle-style beach house on Long Island built in the late 1800s. It burned down in 1997, but Nye had it meticulously and exactly rebuilt, down to the smallest details. The rebuilding process was recorded in a 2003 documentary, "From the Ashes: The Life and Times of Tick Hall."
She also performed on television, earning an Emmy nomination for her Tallulah Bankhead role in the 1980 movie, "The Scarlett O'Hara War."
Nye was born on Oct. 14, 1936, in Greenwood, Miss., and Cavett is her only immediate survivor.