Joan Blondell

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Joan Blondell

Scene from the trailer of
Broadway Gondolier (1935)
Born Rose Joan Blondell
August 30, 1906(1906-08-30)
New York City, New York
Died December 25, 1979 (aged 73)
Santa Monica, California
Spouse(s) George Barnes (1933-1936)
Dick Powell (1936-1944)
Mike Todd (1947-1950)

Rose Joan Blondell, known as 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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[edit] Early life

Blondell was born to a vaudeville family in New York City. Her father, known as Eddie Joan Blondell, Jr. (né Blustein), was born in Indiana in 1866 to French parents, and was a vaudeville comedian and one of the original Katzenjammer Kids. Blondell's mother was Kathryn ("Katie") Cain, born April 13, 1884, in Brooklyn of Irish American parents. Her younger sister, Gloria, also an actress,[1] was briefly married to film producer Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli (the future producer of the James Bond film series) and bears a strong resemblance to her older sister, Joan. Blondell also had a brother, the namesake of her father and grandfather.

Joan had seen much of the world by the time her family settled in Dallas, Texas when she was a teenager. Under the name Rosebud Blondell she won the 1926 Miss Dallas pageant and placed fourth for Miss America in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in September of that same year. She was a student attending what is now the University of North Texas, then a teacher's college, in Denton north of Dallas, where her mother was a local stage actress, and Joan did some work as a fashion model. Around 1927, she returned to New York to become an actress, and performed on Broadway. In 1930, she starred with James Cagney in Penny Arcade.[2]

[edit] Career

Blondell in Three on a Match (1932)
Blondell in Three on a Match (1932)

Penny Arcade only lasted three weeks, but Al Jolson saw it and bought the rights to the play for $20,000. He then sold the rights to Warner Brothers with the proviso that Blondell and Cagney be cast in the film version. Placed under contract by Warners, she moved to Hollywood where studio boss Jack Warner wanted her to change her name to "Inez Holmes", but Blondell refused. She began to appear in short subjects, and in 1931 was named as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars.

During the 1930s Joan Blondell 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 Warners 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 Sinners' Holiday (1930) – the film version of Penny Arcade – and The Public Enemy (1931), and was one half of a 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, 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. In 1937, she starred opposite Errol Flynn in The Perfect Specimen, from a screenplay by the then "hot" playwright Lawrence Riley and others.

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, despite being relegated to character and supporting roles after the mid-1940's, and received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role in The Blue Veil (1951). She was also featured prominently in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), Nightmare Alley (1947), Desk Set (1957), Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) and The Cincinnati Kid (1965). Blondell 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 film Opening Night (1977). She also starred in the ABC TV series Here Come the Brides set 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. In December 2007, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City mounted a retrospective of Blondell's films in connection with a new biography by film professor Matthew Kennedy.

[edit] Private life

Blondell first married cinematographer George Barnes in a private wedding ceremony on 4 January 1933 at the First Presbyterian Church in Phoenix, Arizona. They had one child – Norman S. Powell who became an accomplished producer, director, and television executive – and divorced in 1936. On 19 September 1936, she married her second husband, actor, director, and singer Dick Powell. They had a daughter, Ellen Powell, who became a studio hair stylist, and Powell adopted her son by her previous marriage. Blondell and Powell were divorced on 14 July 1944.

On 5 July 1947, Blondell married her third husband, producer Mike Todd, whom she divorced in 1950. Her marriage to Todd was an emotional and financial disaster. 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). He went through a controversial bankruptcy during their marriage. While continuing to live the "high life" on a huge estate in Irvington in New York's Westchester County, the irresponsible Todd ran through Blondell's savings and eventually dumped her.

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.

She wrote a roman à clef novel entitled Center Door Fancy (New York: Delacorte Press, 1972), a thinly disguised autobiography.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Features

[edit] Short Subjects

  • The Heart Breaker (1930)
  • Broadway's Like That (1930)
  • The Devil's Parade (1930)
  • An Intimate Dinner in Celebration of Warner Bros. Silver Jubilee (1930)
  • How I Play Golf, by Bobby Jones No. 10: Trouble Shots (1931)
  • Just Around the Corner (1933)
  • Hollywood Newsreel (1934)
  • Meet the Stars #2: Baby Stars (1941)
  • The Cincinnati Kid Plays According to Hoyle (1965)

[edit] References

  1. ^ IMDB Gloria Blondell
  2. ^ IBDB Joan Blondell

[edit] External links

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Persondata
NAME Blondell, Joan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Blondell, Rose Joan
SHORT DESCRIPTION actress
DATE OF BIRTH August 30, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City, New York
DATE OF DEATH December 25, 1979
PLACE OF DEATH Santa Monica, California