Early life
Troy was born in Manhattan into a family with deep roots in New York's Yiddish theater tradition.1 Her mother was an actress in the Yiddish theater, as were her maternal grandmother and two great-aunts.1 Her father, Seymour Troy (born Taradajka), was a prominent designer and manufacturer of women's shoes.1 She studied acting with Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, and Harold Clurman, and also trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.1
Troy made her off-Broadway debut in 1954 in Jean Cocteau's The Infernal Machine2 and her Broadway debut the following year in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Pipe Dream (1955), which was directed by Harold Clurman.3
Career
Broadway
Troy built a substantial Broadway career over the decade following her debut. She received her first Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Tovarich (1963),4 in which she played Natalia Mayovskaya opposite Vivien Leigh and Jean-Pierre Aumont.4 Her signature stage role came the following year: Ruth Condomine in High Spirits (1964), a musical adaptation of Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit, in which she appeared opposite Edward Woodward and Beatrice Lillie and earned critical praise for what reviewers called a "sprightly, winning, handsome, and vivid performance."5 She received her second Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for High Spirits (1964).1 She received her third Tony nomination, for Best Leading Actress in a Musical, for Walking Happy (1966),6 in which she played Maggie Hobson opposite Norman Wisdom at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, with a score by Sammy Cahn and James Van Heusen.6
Film and television
Troy appeared in two notable films in 1968: as Grace Biswanger in Frank Perry's The Swimmer, opposite Burt Lancaster, and as Madeleine Love in Melville Shavelson's Yours, Mine and Ours, opposite Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda.7 Her television credits included The United States Steel Hour, The Defenders, Hogan's Heroes, Room 222, The Odd Couple, Kate and Allie, and The Guiding Light.7
Ghostbusters II
In Ghostbusters II (1989), Troy played the Woman with Fur Coat, one of the film's most visually striking minor characters. The sequence (Chapter 21: "Tenth Level of Hell") takes place on New Year's Eve 1989 outside the Plaza Hotel. Troy's character walks along the sidewalk in a full-length mink coat over a gold evening dress and gold heels, then steps into a puddle of Psychomagnotheric Slime oozing up from beneath the city. The slime reanimates the dead minks in her coat, which begin snapping and attacking her; she tears the coat off and throws it to the ground, where it runs off snarling at passersby. A second sequence shows another fur-coated woman whose coat is similarly reanimated after slime splashes on it from a nearby fountain.
The character was adapted in the NOW Comics Real Ghostbusters Starring in Ghostbusters II Part 3, where she is depicted with pink hair and a white fur coat rather than the film's red hair and gold-accented ensemble.
Troy's on-screen husband in the film was Douglas Seale, to whom she was married in real life from 1992 until her death two years later.1
Personal life
Troy was married to actor Werner Klemperer, best known for his role as Colonel Klink in Hogan's Heroes, from 1969 to 1975.1 Both marriages were childless.1 She later married actor and director Douglas Seale in 1992.1
Death
Louise Troy died of breast cancer at her home in New York City on May 5, 1994, at the age of 60.8
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
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"Louise Troy," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Troy.
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BroadwayWorld, "The Infernal Machine - Off-Broadway Production (1954)," accessed 2026-06-13, https://www.broadwayworld.com/shows/backstage.php?showid=329196.
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"Pipe Dream (musical)," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipe_Dream_(musical).
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"Tovarich (musical)," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tovarich_(musical).
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BroadwayWorld, "High Spirits - Original Broadway Musical Cast 1964," accessed 2026-06-13, https://www.broadwayworld.com/shows/High-Spirits-5090/cast.
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"Walking Happy," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_Happy.
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"Louise Troy," IMDb, accessed 2026-06-13, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0873899/.
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"Breast Cancer Claims Broadway Actress Louise Troy," Deseret News, May 12, 1994.
