Nancy - Elayne Heilveil
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lbjca — 18 years ago(June 24, 2007 09:40 AM)
I didn't like Elayne Heilveil in the roll at all, I can see why they decided to replace her. She wasn't attractive, and she for sure couldn't act. Great choice who they ended up choosing. Meredith did a great job and looked really attractive too.
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kwalstedt-1 — 18 years ago(June 28, 2007 03:08 PM)
I'm just watching the first two seasons on DVD and I actually hadn't seen the episodes with Heilveil before. I think I missed the first season of Family when it first came out.
Anyway, I think she is okay - pretty good at seeming like Daddy's Little Princess in a weak, soft way. Not bitchy, more passive and helpless. I am greatly looking forward to getting away from these and getting to the episodes with Meredith Baxter.
Heilveil is too sympathetic and makes Mrs. Lawrence seem like a harpy when she shows no sympathy for her in the first episode. -
Psierut — 18 years ago(January 07, 2008 10:14 AM)
Big Family fan here. Between the time the initial six episodes ran in 1976 and the regular season began in the fall it was announced that an actress named Jane Actman was taking over the part of Nancy. (I don't know her, but she does have an entry on imdb that stops in the late seventies.) Apparently she didn't work out, so Meredith Baxter got the part. I never heard that she reshot the previous actress's scenes though. That's interesting!
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Wardman3 — 18 years ago(January 07, 2008 03:44 PM)
Well here is a picture of Jane Actman from the Paul Lynde show.
http://www.paullynde.info/TVGuide 19720909.
I remember that the other girl in the picture was the Voice of Lucy in the Peanut's specials and she also was in the infamous episode of "The Brady Bunch" playing Lucy Winters. It is the one where Jan wears a wig to that party and Peter gets girlhandled by Margie Whiffle. -
Sjbradford — 17 years ago(September 04, 2008 08:24 PM)
Jane Actman - thank you for remembering that. I knew it wasn't Cheryl Ladd who was Heilveil's immediate successor. If you look at that picture, I think Actman actually bears some resemblance to Heilveil, especially her smile.
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JussSayin — 11 years ago(January 08, 2015 06:03 AM)
The pic is no longer there but I found a clip of The Paul Lynde show and can see why they picked Jane Actman - she did look similar to Elaine Heilveil. There was probably more to why they let her go than just simply looking too young.
I agree with a poster that didn't place all the blame on Elayne for being fired. The writers may have not decided on exactly how they wanted the character and probably after the first season they wanted a different type of person to play the role. -
niko7sky-1 — 18 years ago(January 08, 2008 12:02 PM)
I also heard that Season Hubley was up for the role of Nancy. She was eventually cast as "Salina MacGee", and the viewing audience loved her. The producers kicked themselves for not casting Season as Nancy, and brought back "MacGee" for a few other episodes.
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rob-949 — 18 years ago(January 09, 2008 10:12 PM)
I think Ms. Heilveil was a competent actress in her scenes especially the breakdown in the car scene. I think the producers didn't have a clear idea of what they wanted for the character of Nancy in the first 6 episodes, and when they did they decided to go in a different direction probably in no small part than because Willie and Buddy were so protective of one another they needed a contrast and source of conflict hence bitchy Nancy II.
Ms. Baxter looks less like the possible daughter of Sada Thompson and James Broderick than does Ms. Heilveil, and, actually, after the pilot, Ms. Heilveil's appearance improved considerably (as did Ms. Thompson's).
I don't think it's a slight on the actress that she was released from her contract, and the role wsas recast. It's simply the producers looking at the first six episodes and the cast as a whole and deciding what worked, what didn't, and where there was room to increase the drama and complicate the family dynamic to keep things interesting. -
lbjca — 17 years ago(June 18, 2008 11:22 AM)
I never saw Elayne Heilveil again after being on Family the first few times. Meredith Baxter bacame a big star, this tells a lot right there. This was a very good choice to get rid of Ms. Heilveil, she didn't play the role well at all.
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ethersmum — 16 years ago(June 19, 2009 10:07 AM)
HmmmI don't know. I agree with the other person on this forum who said Baxter looked something like Broderick and Gary Frank (Willy): same fair hair and pale blue eyes. I also agree that Heilveil, with her big dark eyes and hair, resembled Sada Thompson and Kristy McNichol. Are all the children you know absolute spitting images of their parents? Not in my family. My mother is a dead-ringer for Audrey Hepburn, but her mother looked like Bea Arthur and her father looked like Pope John Paul II!
Besides, I think acting ability should take precedence over appearance, especially on such a well-crafted drama such as "Family". -
subcarrier — 16 years ago(August 29, 2009 01:11 AM)
I agree, I've seen many instances where a parent's child looks completely unlike them. This was not left unaddressed by the writers though. In the episode "Princess In The Tower", Kate is telling Kim Darby's character while she's giving birth about her children. I don't remember it verbatim, but she says how different from her her oldest daughter Nancy lookstall and with long blond hair.
I sure could use a refresher on the episode, if Sony would just get off of their butts and get out some more seasons.
What else do you like? Lazy, ugly, horny? I got it all -
fentress — 16 years ago(January 04, 2010 02:08 PM)
I agree with the majority of posters on this thread, i.e. that Meredith Baxter Birney was a better actress and more attractive. Not that Elayne Heilveil was particularly unattractive, but Baxter-Birney was more telegenic. I think replacing Heilveil with Baxter-Birney was a wise casting choice, even if she doesn't look as much as though she could be the Lawrence's daughter.
However, I can't help but notice that photo of Elayne Heilveil on the piano during the show's opening sequence - in the few episodes she was in. In that photo, I think she looks quite striking. I can't get over how good she looks in that photo. Unfortunately she didn't look quite as good any other time. The photographer must have caught her on a good day. -
thedavidavin — 11 years ago(March 10, 2015 04:15 PM)
Of course there's a chance that none of the original posters on this topic are still alive, but this thread made me go back and watch the first 6 episodes, just to see if the actress playing Nancy was ugly, boring or a bad or miscast actress. I found none of it to be true. Wikipedia (not that I trust everything I read there) refers to the first 6 episodes as a mini-series, so that accounts for a lot of questions regarding the length of the first "season" and the decision to recast Nancy. As an earlier post suggests, if the following season wasn't negotiated, I can see where they would have traded the star power of Baxter to ensure a hit.
Heilveil was perfectly attractive for the time and I think she very much looked like she could be an actual daughter of Sada Thompson, as well as Willie and Buddy's sibling and her acting is spot-on. This character is quite different than the other generations of the family in that so many characters of that age were written off as hippies or the typical bitchy-but-hot "Meredith Baxter California Girl". I think Heilveil gave the role an interesting substance, almost a "trump card" of a character, such as ALL of those we watched Christina Raines play during the same era. She seemed to not be confident of anything, which was very realistic for a character of her age in 1976.
Thanks to this discussion board, I was forced to look up these episodes and watch them. When this show originally aired, I was growing up in a rural area and we only picked up the NBC affiliate, so I only saw a handful of the Season 3 episodes back then. Now I see what the big deal was and plan to watch all of it. Much of it still holds up thematically. I can see where Gary Frank's "method" likely rubbed off on McNichol. And speaking of, no wonder the child grew up to be manic-depressive. Let's look at the themes of the first 6 episodes:- Infidelity/Abortion
- Cancer and Best Friend Moving Away
- Falling In Love with Someone Who Is Pregnant By Someone Else
- Death
- Death of a Child
- Psychotic Home Invasion/Runaway Brother (although I don't think a High School Drop-Out could qualify as a runaway during that period).
Did they set out to be the Polar-Brady Bunch? Does anything good every happen to this family? I'm hooked already, so I guess I'm about to find out. Thompson and Broderick turned in some fine TV acting here.