Q Tell me about the actress who plays Ducky's mother on NCIS. She is wonderful. I remember her as a movie star. Is her name Nina?
—Betty J. Rector, Santa Fe, Texas
Your memory serves you correctly. The Holland-born actress who plays Victoria Mallard on NCIS is Nina Foch, who has been working in Hollywood since 1943. One of her earliest roles was one of the victims in Return of the Vampire; one of her best known was opposite Gene Kelly in An American in Paris. Now 82, Foch has continued to work steadily through the years with guest appearances on popular TV shows such as Dharma & Greg, L.A. Law, Hunter and Murder, She Wrote.