Take Us Back Nancy Travis

The engaging actress breaks down her longrunning TV marriage to Tim Allen, the unique thrill of Grosse Pointe Garden Society and much more

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If Nancy Travis could see the future... “I’ll be delivering some Shakespearean monologue, and then that’s it. I collapse on the stage. That’s my fantasy of how it all ends,” she tells Us with a chuckle. But the actress, 63, known for her curly hair and brilliant smile — as well as the TV hit Last Man Standing and the film franchise Three Men and a Baby — is nowhere near retirement.

While studying drama at New York University, Travis did the obligatory waiting tables but also “moving papers around and getting coffee. And I used to sneak into office buildings and put cards on desks [for] advertising.” Smaller theater roles led to her 1980s Broadway debut in I’m Not Rappaport, where she fulfilled every understudy’s fantasy of stepping into a role.

Fast-forward

Many films and series later, Travis is on the soapy Grosse Pointe Garden Society (NBC, Fridays, 8 P.M.) — and “eating it up” — as a society matron in a wealthy ’burb who’s trying to stay on top. “I’ve had a career of being the woman who is eye candy for the man,” she tells Us. “This is a woman on a mission.”

COMMERCIAL WORK

HOSTESS PUDDING CAKES, 1987