Later Life and Death
At 70, after more than 50 years of acting, she discovered a new popularity, and it was for playing a wildly unsympathetic character. Livia Soprano was a role that she compared to that of Caligula's great-grandmother in I, Claudius, a woman who also happened to be named Livia. Nancy died from lung cancer and emphysema on 18 June 2000, the day before what would have been her 72nd birthday in Stratford, Connecticut. As a result, her character's death was written into the third season story line of The Sopranos. Her husband of 48 years, actor Paul Sparer (1923–1999), had died the previous year, also from cancer. The couple had three children, Katie, an actress who lives in Stratford; David, of Madison, Wis.; and Rachel Sparer Bersier, an opera singer of Manhattan.
Read more about this topic: Nancy Marchand
Famous quotes containing the words life and/or death:
“What is the life of man! Is it not to shift from side to side?from sorrow to sorrow?to button up one cause of vexation!and unbutton another!”
—Laurence Sterne (17131768)
“your antlers like seaweed,
your face like a wolfs death mask,
your mouth a virgin, your nose a nipple,
your legs muscled up like knitting balls,
your neck mournful as an axe....”
—Anne Sexton (19281974)