Joan Blondell

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Rose Joan Blondell (August 30, 1906 – December 25, 1979) was an American actress who performed in movies and on television for half a century.

She began her career in vaudeville. After winning a beauty pageant, Blondell embarked upon a film career.

She established herself as a pre-Code staple of Warner Bros.

pictures in roles as a sexy, wisecracking blonde, and appeared in more than 100 movies and television productions.

She was most active in films during the 1930s, and during that time she co-starred with Glenda Farrell in nine films, in which the duo portrayed gold-diggers.

Blondell continued acting on screen for the rest of her life, often in small character roles or supporting television roles.

She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in The Blue Veil (1951). Near the end of her life, Blondell was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in John Cassavetes's Opening Night (1977).

She featured in two more films — Grease (1978), and The Champ (1979), which was released shortly before her death from leukemia.

Early life

Rose Joan Blondell was born in New York to a vaudeville family; she gave her birthdate as August 30, 1906. Her father, Levi Bluestein, a vaudeville comedian known as Ed Blondell, was born in Poland to a Jewish family in 1866. He toured for many years starring in Blondell and Fennessy's stage version of The Katzenjammer Kids. Blondell's mother was Catherine (known as "Kathryn" or "Katie") Caine, born in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York (later Brooklyn, New York City) on April 13, 1884, to Irish-American parents. Joan's younger sister, Gloria Blondell, also an actress, was briefly married to film producer Albert R. Broccoli. Joan also had a brother, Ed Blondell, Jr.

Joan's cradle was a property trunk as her parents moved from place to place. 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. Her family comprised a vaudeville troupe, the Bouncing Blondells.

Joan had spent a year in Honolulu (1914–15) and six years in Australia and had seen much of the world by the time her family stopped touring and settled in Dallas, Texas when she was a teenager. Using the name Rosebud Blondell, she won the 1926 Miss Dallas pageant, was a finalist in an early version of the Miss Universe pageant in May 1926, and placed fourth for Miss America 1926 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in September of that year. She attended Santa Monica High School, where she acted in school plays and edited the school yearbook. While there, she gave her name as Rosebud Blondell, and when she attended North Texas State Teacher's College (now the University of North Texas) in Denton in 1926–1927 where her mother was a local stage actress.

Personal life

Blondell was married three times, first to cinematographer George Barnes in a private wedding ceremony on January 4, 1933, at the First Presbyterian Church in Phoenix, Arizona. They had one child, Norman Scott Barnes, who became an accomplished producer, director, and television executive known as Norman Powell. Joan and George divorced in 1936.

On September 19, 1936, she married Dick Powell, an actor, director, and singer. They had a daughter, Ellen Powell, who became a studio hair stylist, and Powell adopted her son by her previous marriage under the name Norman Scott Powell. Blondell and Powell were divorced on July 14, 1944. Blondell was less than friendly with Powell's next wife, June Allyson, although the two women later appeared together in The Opposite Sex (1956).

On July 5, 1947, Blondell married producer Mike Todd. Her marriage to Todd was an emotional and financial disaster that ended in divorce in 1950. She once accused him of holding her outside a hotel window by her ankles. He was also a heavy spender who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars gambling (high-stakes bridge was one of his weaknesses) and went through a controversial bankruptcy during their marriage. An often-repeated myth is that Mike Todd left Blondell for Elizabeth Taylor, when in fact, she had left Todd of her own accord years before he met Taylor.

Blondell died of leukemia in Santa Monica, California, on Christmas Day, 1979, with her children and her sister at her bedside. She was cremated and her ashes interred in a columbarium at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. She was 73.

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Career

She returned to New York in 1927, worked as a fashion designer, a shop attendant, and a clerk, and performed on Broadway. She appeared in Penny Arcade on Broadway in 1930 with James Cagney. Penny Arcade lasted only three weeks, but Al Jolson saw it and bought the rights to the play for $20,000. He later sold the rights to Warner Bros., with the condition that Blondell and Cagney be cast in the film version, Sinners' Holiday (1930). She was released by Warner Bros. and went to Hollywood, where studio boss Jack L. Warner wanted her to change her name to "Inez Holmes": 34 years old, but Blondell refused. She began appearing in short stories and was voted one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1931.

Blondell appeared in films several times, including The Public Enemy (1931) and Footlight Parade (1933), and she was one-half of a gold-digging pair with Glenda Farrell in nine films. Blondell, one of the highest-paid individuals in the country during the Great Depression, was one of the top-paid workers during the Great Depression. In a Busby Berkeley production of "Remember My Forgotten Man" in which she co-starred Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler, she became an anthem for unemployed people and the government's failing economic policies. In 1937, she appeared in The Perfect Specimen opposite Errol Flynn. She had made nearly 50 films by the time she was dead by the time the decade came to an end. She died at Warner Bros. in 1939.

Blondell returned to Broadway in 1943 as the star of Mike Todd's short-lived production of The Naked Genius, a comedy directed by Gypsy Rose Lee. Despite being relegated to character and supporting roles after 1945, when she was paid below the price for the first time in 14 years in Adventure, which starred Clark Gable and Greer Garson, she was well-regarded in her later films. She was also included in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) and Nightmare Alley (1947). She left television for three years and concentrated on theater, appearing in summer stock and touring with Cole Porter's musical Something for the Boys in 1948. In the national tour of Bye Birdie, she reprised her role as Aunt Sissy in the musical version of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for the national tour and performed Mae Peterson.

Blondell returned to Hollywood in 1950. For her role in The Blue Veil (1951), she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She appeared in The Opposite Sex (1956), Desk Set (1957), and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957). She received a Golden Globe nomination and National Board of Review award for Best Supporting Actress in Norman Jewison's The Cincinnati Kid (1965). In his film Opening Night (1977), John Cassavetes portrays her as a cynical, aging playwright. Blondell appeared in two films not long before her death – Grease (1978), and Jon Voight and Rick Schroder's remake of The Champ (1979) were both released. She appeared in two films after her death, The Glove (1979), and The Woman Inside (1981).

Blondell appeared in a number of television shows, including three 1963 episodes as Aunt Win in the CBS sitcom The Real McCoys, starring Walter Brennan and Richard Crenna.

In 1963, Blondell was cast as the widowed Lucy Tutaine in the episode "The Train and Lucy Tutaine," hosted by Stanley Andrews on the syndicated anthology series Death Valley Days. Lucy sues a railroad company for causing her cow's death despite overwhelming odds. Noah Beery Jr. was cast as Abel.

In 1964, she appeared in the episode "What's in the Box?" The Twilight Zone is located in the United Kingdom. She appeared in the episode "You're All Right, Ivy" on Jack Palance's circus drama The Greatest Show on Earth, which aired on ABC in the 1963–64 television season. Joe E. Brown and Buster Keaton were her co-stars in the segment. Lucille Ball's sidekick on the hit CBS television comedy series The Lucy Show in 1965, she was in contention to replace Vivian Vance as Lucille Ball's sidekick. Blondell walked off the set right after the episode ended filming as she was severely mocking her performance in front of the camera audience and technicians, but she regretfully left early in her second guest appearance as Joan Brenner (Lucy's new friend from California).

Blondell's television appearances soon became a thing of conversation. She appeared on CBS sitcom Family Affair, starring Brian Keith, in 1968. Bea Benaderet, who was sick, was substituted for one episode of CBS' Petticoat Junction. Blondell played FloraBelle Campbell, a female visitor to Hooterville who had previously visited Uncle Joe (Edgar Buchanan) and Sam Drucker (Frank Cady). Blondell co-starred in all 52 episodes of ABC's Here Come the Brides, set in the Pacific Northwest of the 19th century. Singer Bobby Sherman and actor-singer David Soul appeared in her co-stars. Blondell received two Emmy nominations for her continuing work by an actress in a dramatic series for her role as Lottie Hatfield.

In 1971, she followed Sada Thompson in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, with a young Swoosie Kurtz playing one of her children.

Peggy Revere, who operated a shadowy paraschool in the same building as Banyon's detective agency, was still active in NBC's Banyon as Peggy Revere in 1972. This was a 1930s period action drama starring Robert Forster in the title role. Her students were based in Banyon's office, providing fresh faces for the show every week. Midseason, the show was redesigned midseason.

Blondell is known for her contributions to the film industry. Her actress is on 6311 Hollywood Boulevard. The Museum of Modern Art in New York City held a retrospective of Blondell's films in connection with a new biography by film scholar Matthew Kennedy, in December 2007, and theater revival houses such as the Film Forum in Manhattan have also featured some of her films recently.

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