Tall, provocative actress Joan Woodbury was born Joanne Woodbury in Los Angeles on December 17, 1915. Of Danish, English and Indian heritage, she was educated for seven years in a convent. Trained in dance, she was already performing in her mid-teens by the time she graduated from Hollywood High School. A solo dancer at one point with the Agua ...
I don't blame the studios [for typecasting me]. I certainly didn't look much like the girl next door. A cameraman once told me I had the longest face in the picture business.
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The pace of B's was more to my liking. We seldom had retakes, which bore me to death, and there was never time for the star temperament and such nonsense that goes on during the filming of a big picture.
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Opened a dance school in 1944. Jennifer Jones became a student.
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Was chosen to be premiere ballerina for the Corps de Ballet's Opera Under the Stars at the Hollywood Bowl Grand Opera Festibval in 1936.
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An artist, photographer and photo collector, she later had special exhibitions of her art work. In 1963 she hosted a local series "Adventure in Art" on KCHU-TV.
4
Father Elmer owned a hotel; mother Joan Hedenfeldt, a one-time vaudevillian, was a Pasadena Tournament of Roses Queen of 1907. Her parents divorced when Joan was 10. Following this Joan's mother entered her daughter into a convent and pursued a European operatic career for several years before returning.
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According to Laura Wagner's article on Joan in Film of the Golden Ages, Spring 2015 issue, Joan was considered a child prodigy. At three she was performing in concert. At six she was fluent in two languages; was an excellent child horsewoman; and danced and played the piano.
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Later taught workshops at UC and also produced, directed and acted in the annual Nativity play for the Wilcoxon Group Players.
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Appeared in her first film at age 6 in The Half Breed (1922) starring Wheeler Oakman. Her first professional lead was in the Hopalong Cassidy western The Eagle's Brood (1935) billed as "Nana Martinez".
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Suffered from tuberculosis when she died in Desert Hot Springs.
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Had three children from her marriage to actor Henry Wilcoxon: Wendy, Heather and Cecilia. Cecilia was named after Cecilia de Mille, the daughter of director Cecil B. DeMille, with whom Henry was a close associate.
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Occasionally wrote magazine and newspaper articles for her local Palm Springs (CA) area.
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She and her second husband, actor Ray Mitchell co-founded the Valley Players Guild Theatre in Palm Springs, California.
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For six years she was a producer and and director of both grand and light operas for the Redlands (California) Bowl.
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Her mother was the third queen of the Rose Parade.
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She was the great-niece of the founder of Woodbury Soap.
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