The Wrap is reporting the death of Elizabeth Norment, a longtime stage actor best known for playing Frank Underwood’s secretary, Nancy Kaufberger, on Netflix’s House Of Cards. She was 61. Though Norment died on October 13, the news was withheld for almost two weeks, until a notice appeared in her hometown paper, The Washington Post. The reported cause of death was cancer.
A native of Washington, D.C., Norment spent much of her childhood in Germany and Japan, where her father, a CIA analyst, was stationed. She studied at the University of Chicago, Cornell, and finally Yale, where she obtained an MFA in theater. She began her professional acting career in 1980 as a founding member of the American Repertory Theater and worked largely on stage, most notably with the Milwaukee Rep and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Like many theater veterans, Norment also picked up work on various legal and medical procedurals, popping up on shows like L.A. Law, Law & Order, ER, Law & Order: SVU, and St. Elsewhere. House Of Cards was her first major recurring role.