Early Life and Career
Grahn was born in Skokie, Illinois. Her parents were both involved with their local community theater in Skokie. Grahn's first stage appearance was as a pony in a community production of Oklahoma! At Niles North High School, she played "Daisy Mae" opposite future Broadway actor Gregg Edelman in the school's production of Lil' Abner. As a freshman at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Grahn landed her first credited role, as Mimi in Guys and Dolls at the Goodman Rep Theater, 1973–74 season.
Grahn subsequently went to New York City, where she studied acting with noted drama teachers Sandy Meisner and Bill Epsen. Here she had roles in productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Barefoot in the Park. She also appeared in commercials and several industrial films; in an interview, Grahn recalled crossing paths with fellow future soap star Kim Zimmer at the production of several of those films. She also continued to perform in numerous plays, such as Father's Day and Two for the Seesaw, among others.
Read more about this topic: Nancy Lee Grahn
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“Our instructed vagrancy, which has hardly time to linger by the hedgerows, but runs away early to the tropics, and is at home with palms and banyans—which is nourished on books of travel, and stretches the theatre of its imagination to the Zambesi.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.”
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964)