Nancy Dolman

Nancy Jane Dolman (September 26, 1951 – August 21, 2010) was a Canadian comic actress and singer. She was most notable for her recurring role as Annie Selig Tate on the ABC sitcom Soap. She appeared in her husband Martin Short's 1985 cable television special Martin Short: Concert for the North Americas.

Dolman was born in Toronto. Her brother is director Bob Dolman. Dolman performed in the Canadian Rock Theatre production of Jesus Christ Superstar in the early 1970s, which travelled to Las Vegas and Los Angeles, and recorded an album with the group at MGM while they were in Los Angeles.

In 1980, she married fellow Canadian actor Martin Short, whom she had met during the run of the 1972 Toronto production of Godspell. Dolman was Gilda Radner's understudy. Dolman attended high school at York Mills Collegiate Institute in Toronto, and held a Bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Western Ontario.

Dolman retired from show business in 1985 to be a homemaker and full-time mother to her children. A profile of the couple appeared in the February 1987 issue of Vogue. The family made their home in Pacific Palisades, California. Dolman and Short also kept a vacation home in Lake Muskoka, Ontario.

Children

Dolman and Short adopted three children: Katherine Elizabeth (born 1983), a graduate of New York University; Oliver Patrick (born 1986), a graduate of the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business; and Henry Hayter (born 1989), who also graduated from the University of Notre Dame in May 2012.

Dolman was suffering from ovarian cancer and died on August 21, 2010, in Pacific Palisades, California. She was 58 years old. According to the Los Angeles County Coroner, she died of natural causes. Dolman's remains were cremated and her ashes were scattered from the dock of the Short family cottage, onto the waters of Lake Rosseau, Muskoka, Ontario, Canada.