Joanne Dru

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Joanne Dru

from the trailer for
Vengeance Valley (1951)
Born Joanne Letitia LaCock
January 31, 1922(1922-01-31)
Logan, West Virginia, U.S.
Died September 10, 1996 (aged 74)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.

Joanne Dru (January 31, 1922 – September 10, 1996) was an American film and television actress. She also was the elder sister of Peter Marshall, best known for hosting Hollywood Squares.

[edit] Life and career

Born Joanne Letitia LaCock in Logan, West Virginia, Dru came to New York City in 1940 at the age of eighteen. After finding employment as a model, she was chosen by Al Jolson to appear in the cast of his Broadway show Hold Onto Your Hats. Dru met and married popular singer Dick Haymes. When they moved to Hollywood, she found work in the theater. Dru was spotted by a talent scout and made her first film appearance in Abie's Irish Rose (1946).

Over the next decade, Dru appeared frequently in films and on television. She was cast often in western films such as Howard Hawks's Red River (1948), and John Ford's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Wagon Master (1950). She later lamented that she had been typecast in western films, commenting that once an actress suffered that fate, that was the end, adding that she never liked horses.

She gave a well-received performance in the dramatic film All the King's Men (1949), and co-starred with Dan Dailey in The Pride of St. Louis (1952) about major-league baseball pitcher Jerome "Dizzy" Dean. She was divorced from Haymes in 1949, and married John Ireland, who was also in Red River, less than a month later. Dru and Ireland got divorced in 1957.

She also appeared in the Martin and Lewis film 3 Ring Circus (1954). Her film career began to fade by the end of the 1950s, but she continued working frequently in television, and played the female lead of Babs Wooten in the 1960-1961 ABC sitcom Guestward, Ho!. Her costars were Mark Miller as her husband, Bill Wooten, and J. Carrol Naish as the Native American Hawkeye. After Guestward, Ho!, she appeared sporadically for the rest of the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s, with one feature film appearance, in Sylvia (1965), and eight television appearances. Although regarded as a capable and popular film actress, it was for her contributions to television that Dru was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Dru had five children, three with Haymes, and two with Ireland. She died in Los Angeles, California at the age of 74 from lymphedema.

[edit] Partial filmography

[edit] External links

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