'Drew Carey Show's' Nan Martin dies

Nan Martin, who played Ali MacGraw's snobbish mother in the 1969 film "Goodbye, Columbus" and the lively Mrs. Louder on "The Drew Carey Show," died Thursday of complications from emphysema at her Malibu home. She was 82.

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Martin also was a prolific stage actress during a career that spanned more than a half-century. She earned a Tony nomination in 1960 for her role in Elia Kazan's "J.B." and was a featured player in many groundbreaking Shakespeare productions in New York with Joseph Papp as director.

Martin was appointed by President Kennedy as a member of the Arts Advisory Committee in the '60s, was an enthusiastic supporter of regional theater and worked regularly at the South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, Calif.

A first-year member of the Actors' Studio in New York, Martin had a stroke in 1981 but didn't stop working until four years ago.

Other film appearances included roles in 1963's "Toys in the Attic" (with Dean Martin), 1968's "For the Love of Ivy" (with Sidney Poitier), 1975's "The Other Side of the Mountain," 1983's "Doctor Detroit" and 1987's "A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors," in which she played Freddy Krueger's mother.

In addition to the 1995-2004 sitcom "Drew Carey," Martin was a TV movie of the week regular during the 1970s and appeared on such shows as "The Twilight Zone," "The Fugitive," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Nip/Tuck," "The Practice," "ER," "Chicago Hope," "Suddenly Susan" and "The Golden Girls."

In "Columbus," Martin played the wife of Jack Klugman who despises her daughter's uninspired boyfriend (Richard Benjamin).

Martin is survived by her husband, California architect Harry Gesner, and two sons: musician and writer Casey Dolan (by her first marriage to film composer Robert Emmett Dolan) and actor-producer Zen Gesner.