Joan Blondell Biography
Joan Blondell was an American actress who performed in movies and on television for half a century. She began her career in vaudeville. Blondell was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in John Cassavetes’s Opening Night (1977).
Joan Blondell Age
She was born on 30th August 1906, on Manhattan, New York City, United States.
Joan Blondell Early Life
Joan was born in Poland to a Jewish family in 1866. Her younger sister, Gloria Blondell, also an actress, Blondell also had a brother, Ed Blondell, Jr. her parents moved from place to place and she made her first appearance on stage at the age of four months when she was carried on in a cradle as the daughter of Peggy Astaire in The Greatest Love.
Joan Blondell Marriage
Before the time of her death, Joan had been involved in three relationships, the first one by George Barnes in 1933 and divorced in 1936. Dick Powell was her second husband in 1936 but divorced in 1944. The third relationship Joan was involved in was with Mike Todd From 1947 to 1950.
Joan has two children.
Joan Blondell Career
Joan worked as a fashion model, a circus hand, a clerk in a store, joined a stock company to become an actress, and performed on Broadway around 1927. Placed under contract by Warner Bros., she moved to Hollywood, where studio boss Jack L. Warner wanted her to change her name to “Inez Holmes”, but Blondell refused.
During the year of 1931, Blondell was one of the highest-paid individuals in the United States. Blondell returned to Broadway as the star of Mike Todd’s short-lived production of The Naked Genius, a comedy written by Gypsy Rose Lee. She was well received in her later films, despite being relegated to the character and supporting roles after 1945.
Joan left the screen for three years and concentrated on theatre, performing in summer stock and touring with Cole Porter’s musical, Something for the Boys. She returned to film in 1950 and featured in the blue veil in 1951, earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
Joan Blondell died on 25, December 1979
Blondell has a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the film industry.
Joan Blondell Death
Blondell died of leukemia in Santa Monica, California, on Christmas Day, 1979, with her children and her sister at her bedside. She is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
Joan Blondell on Television
Television
- 1961 The Untouchables Hannah ‘Lucy’ Wagnall Guest star, “The Underground Court”
- 1964 The Twilight Zone Phyllis Britt Guest Star, “What’s in the Box”, Season 5/Episode 24
- 1968–70 Here Come the Brides Lottie Hatfield 52 episodes, Two consecutive Prime time Emmy nominations for outstanding continued performance by an actress in a dramatic series.
- 1971 McCloud – ″Top of the World, Ma!″ Ernestine White Guest star, playing Bubba White’s (Bo Svenson) mother
- 1972-73 Banyon Peggy Revere 8 episodes, ran a secretarial school that provided Banyon with a new trainee secretary every episoded
- 1979 The Rebels Mrs. Brumple Miniseries