Nancy Travis is an American actress and producer, possibly best known for her role as Vanessa Baxter in “The Last Man Standing” and in the Netflix comedy “The Kominsky Method”.
Early Life and Educational Background
Nancy Ann Travis was born on the 21st of September 1961 in Queens, New York City USA, to Theresa and Gordon Travis, a social worker and sales executive, respectively. She spent most of her early years in Baltimore, Maryland and Framingham, Massachusetts. Nancy attended Walsh Middle School followed by Framingham North High School in Boston, from which she matriculated in 1979. She then attended New York University, from where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Theatre, then studied at the Circle in the Square Theatre School, New York.
Career
Fresh out of high school, Nancy’s first appearance on stage was in “I Am Rappaport” followed by a play at The American Jewish Theater, New York in “Its Hard to Be a Jew”. She then appeared in a Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs, and founded the Off-Broadway company, Naked Angels, starring in the company’s plays “Aven U-Boys”, “King of Connecticut” and “My Children, My Africa”.
Nancy made her TV debut in 1985, as Ann in the television film “Malice in Wonderland”, followed by roles in “Harem” and “Spenser: For Hire”. She made her film debut The following year, as Sylvia Bennington in “Three Men and a Baby”, followed by roles in “Married to the Mob”, “Eight Men Out” and “I’ll be Home for Christmas”. In 1990, she starred in four films, reprising her role in the sequel “Three Men and A Little Lady”, and in “Loose Cannons”, “Internal Affairs” and “Air America”. She next appeared in the films “The Vanishing”, “So I Married an Axe Murderer” and “Destiny Turns on the Radio”, among others in the early ‘90s.
Nancy’s breakthrough in TV shows came in 1995, when she became a series regular as Kim Cooper in “Almost Perfect”, then produced and had a recurring role in “Work With Me”. She was also a series regular in “Becker” and “The Bill Engvall Show” while appearing in the films “Beyond Suspicion”, “Rose Red”, “The Jane Austen Book Club” and “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”.
In 2007, she starred in the short film, “Sally”, alongside her son and produced by her husband. She had small roles in the television shows, “Numb3rs”, “Medium” and “Desperate Housewives” as well as the television films, “Safe Harbor”, “The Pregnancy Pact” and “A Walk In My Shoes”. In the year 2011, she guest starred in the television shows, “How I Met Your Mother”, “Hart of Dixie” and “Grey’s Anatomy”, before bagging the role as Vanessa Baxter in “Last Man Standing”, alongside Tim Allen; she starred in 194 episodes of the show, and it became her most memorable role.
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She made her return to the big screen in the 2014 film “Squatters”, followed by appearances in “The Submarine Kid” and “Dissonance”.
Her most recent roles were in “Mr. Mercedes”, “The Ranch” and a recurring role in the Netflix series “The Kominsky Method”. She is scheduled to appear in the film entitled “Ordinary Angels” in 2023.
The actress first lent her voice for 67 episodes of “Duckman” from 1994 to 1997. She followed it up with roles in the television shows “The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest”, “Superman: The Animated Series”, and “The Wild Thornberrys”. Her most recent voice role was in 2021, in “Night of the Animated Dead”.
Awards and Achievements
- For her role in the movie, “The Party Never Stops: Diary of a Binge Drinker”, Nancy was nominated for a 2008 PRISM Award for Performance in a TV Movie or Miniseries.
- She was also nominated twice —in 2019 and 2020— for a SAG Award under the category Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series for her role in the hit comedy series, “The Kominsky Method”.
Hobbies, Favorite Things and Interesting Facts
- She was raised Catholic.
- Her star sign is Capricorn.
- Despite frequent speculation due to their similar last names, Nancy Travis and performer/songwriter Randy Travis are not related.
- She was part of commercials for brands such as Levi’s Jeans and Twinkies, among others.
- Nancy once said, ‘I really enjoy doing sitcom television. It allows me to stay in Los Angeles and spend more time with my husband and kids’.
- Despite being grateful for her many roles on the big screen, she has confessed to playing repetitive roles saying, ‘… in every feature I’ve been in I’ve been repeatedly defined as the girlfriend or wife’.
- Her favorite actress is Meryl Streep because, ‘.. She raised a family and stayed married and had all of these roles and still can be at the top of her game…’
- The actress has expressed her wish to play a different role in a show ‘… about a woman who’s juggling a career with a relationship’.
- When asked which was her favorite episode on “Last Man Standing”, she said, ‘I don’t know if there is a specific moment that I could say, ‘This episode or that episode.’ Frankly, what ends up happening is you get so involved in an episode shooting and then it ends and you can’t remember a single thing about it…’.
Appearance and Clothing Style
As of 2022, Nancy is a 60-year-old blonde-haired, blue-eyed female of American nationality and Caucasian ethnicity. She is of average height at 5ft 4ins (1.63m) and weighs about 140lbs (64kgs). She has a slim body type with vital statistics of 36-27-38.
Net Worth and Salary
The actress has had a largely successful career as an actress, with more than 60 acting credits to her name. Another source of her income is her production company, Naked Angels. The mother of two lives with her family in their Los Angeles mansion which was bought in 1994 and is valued at about $1.3 million. Authoritative sources cite her net worth to be over $3 million, while her husband has an estimated net worth of $1.2 million.
Relationships
Husband— Robert Fried
It’s assumed that Nancy first met Robert in 1993, when he produced “So I Married An Axe Murderer”, in which she essayed one of the main roles. The pair dated for a few months, and tied the knot in a private ceremony in 1994. Four years later, they were blessed with their first child, a son they named Benjamin E., now an actor, followed by another son named Jeremy in 2001. Nancy once said in an interview, ‘… I knew I wanted to have a family. I knew I wanted to have a marriage and hopefully have it be the only marriage’ – she’s now been married to Rob Fried for 28 years. She enjoys her role as a wife and mother saying, ‘I’m basically a traditionalist, I like to cook dinner; I like to be with my kids,…’.
Robert Nathan “Rob” Fried is an American screenwriter, film producer, media entrepreneur and studio executive. Details concerning his early years and family origin have been kept private, and out of the spotlight. However, it’s known that he has a brother —Daniel Fried— who is a fellow film maker/ producer. On his alma mater, Rob was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University, as well as a Master of Business Administration degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business.
He began working in 1983, for Columbia Pictures as the Executive Vice President of Production, and held other roles such as Director of Film Finance and special projects for the company. He also worked briefly as the director of business development for 20th Century Fox. In 1986, he was hired by Orion Pictures to become Vice President of Production.
In 1990, Rob founded of his own production company, Fried Films, and was the CEO. His first production venture was in 1992, with the short film, “Session Man” —which won an Academy Award— followed by “Rudy”, which won a Christopher Award in 1993. That same year, he produced the film “So I married an Axe Murderer” which starred his soon to be wife, Nancy Travis. Rob served as President and CEO of Savoy Pictures for about two years, then founded the e-commerce store, WhatsHotNow, serving as CEO and Chairman of the company ‘til 2001.
He continued producing films, such as “Winchell”, “Godzilla”, “The Boondock Saints” and “Two Can Play That Game”. He was the executive producer for the films “The Man”, “Man of the Year” and “Collateral”, the latter for which he won an ASCAP Award in 2005. Two years later, Rob launched an internet video company, Spirit EMX, which was then bought by Hallmark Cards. The new owners renamed it as SpiritClips, LLC and have since retained him as CEO of the company. From 2009 to 2011, Fried was the Co-chairman of Tiger Media and then became the CEO of ChromaDex, where he currently works.
