In the earliest days of the show, Almost Live! was heavily influenced by a male viewpoint. A few actresses were introduced in those first years – Andy Stein and Lynne McManus – among them. But the show’s first more regular female member got aboard largely because she happened to be the girlfriend of one the show’s regular cast members – Joe Guppy. We’ll spend some time with him in a future podcast. But this one is about Nancy – and whether she came in the backdoor, the front window or the skylight, once she arrived at ‘Almost Live!’, the show was never the same.
She was Nancy Harris when she grew up in Magnolia. She went to the U-Dub majoring in speech and communications. After meeting and marrying Joe Guppy, the two performed and wrote for “Almost Live!” for a couple of years before deciding in 1989 to move on to the bigger stages of Los Angeles. In 1992, they came back home, where Nancy eventually picked up again on “Almost Live” – this time without Joe. And this time, as not the only female on the show. She stayed with ‘Almost Live!’ for the remaining seven years of its run, riding it to the ground like a drunken rodeo performer.
Since then, Nancy has been hanging out at the Seattle Channel, which is a channel in Seattle. She hosts a weekly culture show called ‘Art Zone’, which is like the old ‘Twilight Zone‘ without the black and white and the twist endings.
Today, she and Joe live in a tasteful condo, as quintessential Seattleites. They drive a hybrid – eat organic – work out – and recycle like crazy. The always busy, on-the-go Nancy happened to be at home the other day, when I took the opportunity to chat with her about those increasingly distant days of ‘Almost Live!’
