Joan Blondell
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Rose Joan Blondell (August 30, 1906 – December 25, 1979) was an Oscar-nominated American actress. Considered a sexy, wisecracking, blonde she was a pre–Hays Code staple of Warner Brothers and appeared in more than 100 movies and television productions.
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Early life
Born to a vaudeville family in New York City, her father, known as Eddie Joan Blondell, Jr. (né Blustein), was a vaudeville comedian and one of the original Katzenjammer Kids. Her younger sister, Gloria, also an actress, was married to film producer Albert R. Broccoli and bears a strong resemblance to her older sister Joan.
Joan had seen much of the world by the time the family settled in Dallas, Texas when she was a teenager. (She also had a brother, the namesake of her father and grandfather.) Under the name Rosebud Blondell she won the 1926 Miss Dallas pageant and came in 4th for the Miss America pageant in September of that year in Atlantic City, N.J. She was noticed by a Hollywood agent in 1930 while performing on Broadway after returning to New York City to become an actress.
She was asked to change her name to Inez "Something", but later dropped the "Rosebud", by which she went during her childhood and into her college days at North Texas Normal Teacher's School in 1926–27, and cemented "Joan Blondell" for a 49-year professional career. She appeared with Jimmy Cagney on Broadway and was one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1931.
Career
Placed under contract by Warner Brothers Studios, making her film debut in 1930, she soon moved to Hollywood. During the 1930s she would embody the Depression era gold-digger, and with her huge blue eyes, blonde hair and wise cracking personality, became a crowd favourite. She appeared in more Warner Brothers films than any other actress, and referred to herself as "Warner's workhorse". The popularity of her films made a great contribution to the studio's profitability.
Blondell was paired with James Cagney in such films as The Public Enemy (1931), and was one half of the gold-digging duo (with Glenda Farrell) in nine films. During the Great Depression, Blondell was one of the highest paid individuals in the United States. Her stirring rendition of "Remember My Forgotten Man" in the Busby Berkeley production of Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), in which she co-starred with Dick Powell and Ginger Rogers, became an anthem for the frustrations of the unemployed and President Herbert Hoover's failed economic policies.
By the end of the decade she had made nearly 50 films, despite having left Warners in 1939. Continuing to work regularly for the rest of her life, Blondell was well received in her later films, and received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role in The Blue Veil (1951). She also appeared in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), Desk Set (1957) and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (motion picture) (1957). She was widely seen in two films released not long before her death, Grease (1978) and the remake of The Champ (1979) with Jon Voight and Rick Schroder. In addition, John Cassavetes cast her as a cynical, aging playwright in his 1978 film Opening Night. She also starred in ABC-TV's Here Come the Brides, about life in the 19th century Pacific Northwest.
Blondell has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures, at 6309 Hollywood Boulevard.
Private life
Blondell was married first in 1932 to the cinematographer George S. Barnes (1892 – 1953); they divorced in 1936. Her second husband, whom she married on September 19, 1936, was the actor, director, and singer Dick Powell; they were divorced on July 14, 1944, and had two children, Ellen Powell and Norman S. Powell (who became an actor, producer, and director). She married her third husband in 1947, the producer Michael Todd, who divorced her in 1950, and whom she once accused of holding her outside a hotel window by her ankles.
She died of leukemia in Santa Monica, California at the age of 73, with her children and her sister at her bedside. She was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
External links
- Joan Blondell at Classic Actresses
- {{{2|{{{name|Joan Blondell}}}}}} at The Internet Movie Database
- Classic Movies (1939 - 1969): Joan Blondellsv:Joan Blondell
Categories: 1906 births | 1979 deaths | American film actors | American stage actors | Best Supporting Actress Oscar Nominee | Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery | Cancer deaths | Entertainers who died in their 70s | Hollywood Walk of Fame | People from New York City | Showgirls appearing as Ziegfeld Girls