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Stage Name: Joan Blondell
Birth Name: Rose Joan Blondell
Occupation: Stage, Movie, TV Actress / Singer / Dancer / Beauty Queen / Pinup Model
Years Active: 1927–1979
Notable Works: Joan Blondell was a prized 1930s 1940s pinup girl and cherished WWII USO Show celebrity entertainer; in 1950 she received an Academy Award nomination for her performance in The Blue Veil; she gave a great performance as Lady Fingers in the film The Cincinnati Kid (1965), garnering a Golden Globe nomination and National Board of Review win for Best Supporting Actress.
Date/Place Birth: August 30, 1906(1906-08-30); New York City, New York, U.S.A.
Date/Death/Cause: She died of leukemia in Santa Monica, California at the age of 73 with her children and her sister at her bedside. She is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California; Plot: Garden of Honor, Columbarium of the Evening Star.
Spouse(s) & Children: George Barnes (1933–1936 divorced) 1 child; Dick Powell (1936–1944 divorced) 1 child; Mike Todd (1947–1950 divorced)
Short Biography: Joan Blondell was born into the entertainment business (vaudeville) and as a teen she was a young beauty queen (Rosebud Blondell); when World War Two broke out she was already a well established and accomplished professional Broadway Stage and Hollywood Movie celebrity actress so of course during WII she was a prized pinup girl. She mainly played character roles, such as Aunt Cissy in the 1945 production of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn with director Elia Kazan. Over her lifetime she worked on scores (80+) of feature films and short film subjects; she appeared in three television series in the 1960s and 1970s resulting in 2 Emmy Nominations: The Real McCoys, Here Comes the Bride, and Banyon. In 1972 she wrote the novel Center Door Fancy, a work of thinly disguised fiction based on her own career;was married 3 times and raised 2 children.