Joan Freeman

Joan Freeman (born January 8, 1942) is an American actress.

Freeman was a child actor, having appeared at the age of seven in the 1949 television series Sandy Dreams, along with Richard Beymer and Jill St. John. At fourteen, she played the character Jeannie Harlow in the 1956 episode "The Frontier Theatre" of the ABC western series, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, with Hugh O'Brian in the title role.

In 1961-1962, she was cast in six episodes as the young waitress Elma Gahrigner, in the ABC drama series Bus Stop with co-stars Marilyn Maxwell, Richard Anderson, and Buddy Ebsen. After Bus Stop, she appeared in guest-starring roles on the NBC modern western series, Empire, with Richard Egan and on the ABC/Warner Brothers western, The Dakotas.

In 1962, Freeman was cast as Marilyn Hayes in the doom and gloom classic film Panic in Year Zero! alongside veteran film stars Ray Milland, Jean Hagen, and singer teenage heart-throb Frankie Avalon. Freeman was cast as tour guide Amelia Carter in The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze.

She co-starred in The Rounders, a lighthearted 1965 film starring Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda. The comedy was based on the novel of the same name by Max Evans. Ben Jones and Marion 'Howdy' Lewis are two easygoing, modern-day cowboys who make a meager living breaking wild horses. Their frequent employer is Jim Ed Love, a shrewd businessman who always gets the better of them. After they bring him a string of tamed horses and spend the winter rounding up stray cows, he talks them into taking a nondescript roan horse in lieu of some of their wages.

However, she is best known for her roles in two musical films. In 1964, she was the love interest of Elvis Presley in Roustabout and in 1967 with Roy Orbison in The Fastest Guitar Alive. In 1967, she appeared as the love interest opposite Don Knotts in the Cold War space-race comedy The Reluctant Astronaut.

In 1977, she costarred as Barbara Robinson in the 13-episode CBS series Code R about the emergency services, fire, police, and ocean rescue, in the California Channel Islands. Tom Simcox played her husband, police chief Walt Robinson. Other co-stars were James Houghton and Martin Kove. The program was seen as an imitation of NBC's long-running Emergency!.

Freeman also made a number of guest appearances on different television shows from the 1950s through the 1980s including NBC's National Velvet, Family Affair,Gunsmoke, and Bonanza. She made a guest appearance on Perry Mason in 1962 as defendant Jennifer Wakely in "The Case of the Fickle Filly." in 1966, she guest starred on The Man From UNCLE in "The Bat Cave Affair." She appeared four times on the NBC western series The Virginian. Her last motion picture performance came as "Mrs. Jarvis" in the 1984 horror film, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.

External links

• Joan Freeman at the Internet Movie Database