Josephine "Joan" Davis (June 29, 1912 – May 23, 1961) was an American comedic actress whose career spanned vaudeville, film, radio, and television. Remembered best for the 1950s television comedy I Married Joan, Davis had a successful earlier career as a screen actress (notably in the Abbott and Costello comedy Hold That Ghost), and a leading star of 1940s radio comedy.
Joan Davis | |
|---|---|
 Davis on I Married Joan (c. 1952/53) | |
| Born | Josephine Davis June 29, 1912 Saint Paul, Minnesota, U.S. |
| Died | May 23, 1961 (aged 48) Palm Springs, California, U.S. |
| Resting place | Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City |
| Occupation(s) | Actress, vaudevillian |
| Years active | 1935–1955 |
| Spouse |
Si Wills
(m. 1931; div. 1948) |
| Children | Beverly Wills |
Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, she was the only child of LeRoy Davis and Nina Mae (née Sinks) Davis, who were married in St. Paul on November 23, 1910.[1] Davis had been a performer since childhood. She appeared with her husband Si Wills in vaudeville.[2]
Career
editFilms
editDavis' first film was a short subject for Educational Pictures titled Way Up Thar (1935), featuring a then-unknown Roy Rogers.[3] Educational's distributor, Twentieth Century-Fox, signed Davis for feature films. Tall and lanky, with a comically flat speaking voice, she became known as one of the few female physical clowns of her time, and developed a reputation for flawless physical comedy.[4] She appeared steadily in Fox features for several years (with Alice Faye, Shirley Temple, Jane Withers, The Ritz Brothers, and Sonja Henie, among others), playing supporting roles in major pictures and larger, featured roles in minor ones.
By the early 1940s Fox was no longer making many comedies, and did not renew her contract. She began freelancing, first at Universal Pictures with Abbott and Costello, then Republic, then RKO with Kay Kyser and then Eddie Cantor.[5] Columbia signed her to star in a pair of musical comedies with Jane Frazee,[6] and she returned to RKO opposite Jack Haley in 1945 and Cantor in 1948.[7] Her last motion picture was the Columbia comedy feature Harem Girl (1952).
Radio
edit
Davis entered radio with an August 28, 1941, appearance on The Rudy Vallee Show and became a regular on that show four months later. Davis then began a series of shows that established her as a top star of radio situation comedy throughout the 1940s. When Vallee left for the Coast Guard in 1943, Davis and Jack Haley became the co-hosts of the show. With a title change to The Sealtest Village Store, Davis was the owner-operator of the store from July 8, 1943, to June 28, 1945 when she left to do Joanie's Tea Room on CBS from September 3, 1945 to June 23, 1947.[8] Sponsored by Lever Brothers on behalf of Swan Soap, the premise had Davis running a tea shop in the little community of Smallville. The supporting cast featured Verna Felton. Harry von Zell was the announcer, and her head writer was Abe Burrows, formerly the head writer (and co-creator) of Duffy's Tavern and eventually a Broadway playwright.
The tea shop setting continued in Joan Davis Time, a CBS Saturday-night series from October 11, 1947, to July 3, 1948. With Lionel Stander as the tea shop manager, the cast included Hans Conried, Mary Jane Croft, Andy Russell, the Choraliers quintet, and John Rarig and his Orchestra. Leave It to Joan ran from July 4 to August 22, 1949, as a summer replacement for Lux Radio Theater and continued from September 9, 1949, to March 3, 1950. She was heard on CBS July 3 through August 28, 1950. She was a frequent and popular performer on Tallulah Bankhead's radio variety show The Big Show (1950–1952).[2] Davis was also a regular on Eddie Cantor's Time to Smile program.[9]
Television
editDavis was the star of the unsold pilot Let's Join Joanie, recorded in 1950. The proposed series was a television adaptation of Leave It to Joan. When I Love Lucy premiered in October 1951 and became a top-rated TV series, sponsors wanted more of the same.[3] I Married Joan premiered in 1952, casting Davis as the manic wife of a mild-mannered community judge (Jim Backus), who got her husband into wacky jams with or without the help of a younger sister, played by her real-life daughter Beverly Wills. Davis was also one of the show's executive producers. I Married Joan did not achieve the ratings success enjoyed by I Love Lucy, but during its first two years, it received moderately successful ratings, even cracking the top 25 for the 1953–1954 season. However, by the start of its third year, not only were the ratings beginning to slip, but Davis began experiencing heart trouble. As a result, the series was canceled in the spring of 1955.[2] I Married Joan experienced greater success in syndication; it was one of the early series to take advantage of that avenue.
After Davis's death in May 1961, I Married Joan was pulled from syndication until litigation over her estate, including her residuals from the show's syndicated reruns, could be settled in court (an issue complicated by the deaths of all of her next of kin in a house fire in 1963).[3]
In 1956, a year after I Married Joan ended its primetime run, Davis was approached by ABC to star in The Joan Davis Show. The premise of this series had Davis playing a musical-comedy entertainer who had raised a daughter on her own. Davis used her real name as the lead character. Veteran actress Hope Summers was cast as Joan's housekeeper, and Wills was signed to play Joan's daughter, also named Beverly. Ray Ferrell was cast as Joan's grandson Stevie. In the pilot, Joan was introduced to her five-year-old grandson for the first time and was trying to convince Beverly, despite her hectic show-business schedule and her somewhat zany personality, that she was a loving and responsible grandmother. The pilot did not sell as a series for ABC. It was forgotten among Davis' television work until many years later when the Museum of Television and Radio in New York discovered the program and added it to its collection.[10]
Death
editOn May 23, 1961, Davis died of a heart attack at age 48 at her home in Palm Springs, California.[11][12] She was interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery mausoleum in Culver City, California.[8] On October 24, 1963, Joan Davis' mother (Nina Davis), daughter (Beverly Wills), and two grandchildren were all killed in a house fire in Palm Springs.[11]
Joan Davis has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for her contribution to the motion picture industry at 1501 Vine Street and one for radio in the 1700 block of Vine.[13]
Filmography
edit| Year | Title | Role | Notes | Ref(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1935 | Way Up Thar | Jennie Kirk | Mack Sennett Short subject | [3] |
| 1935 | Millions in the Air | Singer | [14] | |
| 1936 | Bunker Bean | Mabel, Bunker's Secretary | Uncredited | [15] |
| 1937 | The Holy Terror | Lili | [16] | |
| 1937 | On the Avenue | Miss Katz – Dibble's Secretary | [17] | |
| 1937 | Time Out for Romance | Midge Dooley | [18] | |
| 1937 | The Great Hospital Mystery | Flossie Duff | Alternative title: Dead Yesterday | [19] |
| 1937 | Angel's Holiday | Strivers | [20] | |
| 1937 | Sing and Be Happy | Myrtle | [21] | |
| 1937 | You Can't Have Everything | —
|
Uncredited | [22] |
| 1937 | Wake Up and Live | Spanish Dancer | [23] | |
| 1937 | Thin Ice | Orchestra Leader | Alternative titles: Lovely to Look at Der Komet |
[24] |
| 1937 | Life Begins in College | Inez | Alternative titles: Life Begins at College The Joy Parade |
[25] |
| 1937 | Love and Hisses | Joan | [26] | |
| 1938 | Keep Smiling | Self | [27] | |
| 1938 | Sally, Irene and Mary | Irene Keene | [28] | |
| 1938 | Josette | May Morris | [29] | |
| 1938 | My Lucky Star | Mary Dwight | [30] | |
| 1938 | Hold That Co-ed | Lizzie Olsen | Alternative title: Hold That Girl | [4] |
| 1938 | Just Around the Corner | Kitty | [31] | |
| 1939 | Tail Spin | Babe Dugan | [32] | |
| 1939 | Skinny the Moocher | The Maid | Uncredited | [8] |
| 1939 | Too Busy to Work | Lolly | [33] | |
| 1939 | Day-Time Wife | Joyce Applegate | [34] | |
| 1940 | Free, Blonde and 21 | Nellie | [35] | |
| 1940 | Sailor's Lady | Myrtle | [36] | |
| 1940 | Manhattan Heartbeat | Edna Higgins | [37] | |
| 1941 | For Beauty's Sake | Dottie Nickerson | [38] | |
| 1941 | Hold That Ghost | Camille Brewster | Alternative title: Oh, Charlie | [39] |
| 1941 | Sun Valley Serenade | Miss Carstairs | [40] | |
| 1941 | Two Latins from Manhattan | Joan Daley | [41] | |
| 1942 | Yokel Boy | Molly Malone | Alternative title: Hitting the Headlines | [42] |
| 1942 | Sweetheart of the Fleet | Phoebe Weyms | [43] | |
| 1943 | He's My Guy | Madge Donovan | [44] | |
| 1943 | Two Señoritas from Chicago | Daisy Baker | [45] | |
| 1943 | Around the World | Joan Davis | [46] | |
| 1944 | Beautiful But Broke | Dottie Duncan | [6] | |
| 1944 | Show Business | Joan Mason | [5] | |
| 1944 | Kansas City Kitty | Polly Jasper | [47] | |
| 1945 | She Gets her Man | Jane "Pilky" Pilkington | [48] | |
| 1945 | George White's Scandals of 1945 | Joan Mason | [49] | |
| 1946 | She Wrote the Book | Jane Featherstone | [50] | |
| 1948 | If You Knew Susie | Susie Parker | [7] | |
| 1949 | Make Mine Laughs | [51] | ||
| 1950 | The Traveling Saleswoman | Mabel King | Producer | [52] |
| 1950 | Love That Brute | Mamie Sage | [53] | |
| 1950 | Let's Join Joanie | Unaired CBS pilot | [8] | |
| 1951 | The Groom Wore Spurs | Alice Dean | [54] | |
| 1952 | Harem Girl | Susie Perkins | [55] | |
| 1952-1955 | I Married Joan | Joan Stevens | 99 episodes Producer |
[3] |
Award nominations
edit| Year | Award | Category |
|---|---|---|
| 1953 | Emmy Awards | Best Comedienne |
See also
edit- Golden Age of Television
- Let's Join Joanie (failed pilot with Joan Davis)
References
edit- ^ "Joan was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on June 29, 1907. Joan's birth certificate is interesting in that it was altered some 32 years after it was originally filed. It has been stamped with a notation along the bottom edge, reading “Amended by State Registrar pursuant to affidavit filed on _____,” with the date 2-11-44 written by hand. Asterisks indicate three areas of the document that were amended. The birth date, originally recorded as July 4, 1912, was crossed out by hand and changed to June 29. No middle name had been recorded on the original document; “Donna” was written between the first and last names, with a caret to indicate its placement. The spelling of Joan's mother's maiden name also was corrected. The original document was filled out by Rose Labon, who delivered baby Josephine at the family's residence at 275 Bates Avenue."
Joan Davis: America's Queen of Film, Radio and Television Comedy by David C. Tucker (Biography, pg. 3), McFarland (March 24, 2014), ASIN B00JH2B0ZG, ISBN 978-0786477845/ISBN 0786477849. - ^ a b c Dunning, John (1998). On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-507678-8.
- ^ a b c d e Cullen, Frank; Hackman, Florence; McNeilly, Donald (2007). Vaudeville old & new: an encyclopedia of variety performances in America. Psychology Press. pp. 295–298. ISBN 978-0-415-93853-2.
- ^ a b "Hold That Co-ed". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ a b "Show Business". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ a b "Beautiful But Broke". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ a b "If You Knew Susie". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ a b c d Tucker, David C. (2007). The Women Who Made Television Funny: Ten Stars of 1950s Sitcoms. McFarland. pp. 30, 78–79. ISBN 978-0-7864-8732-5.
- ^ Terrace, Vincent (1999). Radio Programs, 1924-1984: A Catalog of More Than 1800 Shows, pg. 335. McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7864-4513-4.
- ^ "Joan Davis Show, The {pilot} (TV)". The Paley Center for Media. Retrieved February 3, 2015.
- ^ a b Cullen, Frank; Hackman, Florence; McNeilly, Donald (2007). Vaudeville, Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America. Routledge. pp. 297–298. ISBN 978-0-415-93853-2.
- ^ "Television Comedienne Joan Davis Dies At 53". St. Petersburg Times. UPI. May 24, 1961. Retrieved September 30, 2012.
- ^ "Joan Davis". Los Angeles Times Hollywood Star Walk. Retrieved February 3, 2015.
- ^ "Millions in the Air". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ Tucker, David C. (2014). Joan Davis: America's Queen of Film, Radio and Television Comedy. McFarland. p. 37. ISBN 978-1-4766-1502-8.
- ^ "The Unholy Terror". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "On The Avenue". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Time Out for Romance". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "The Great Hospital Mystery". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Angel's Holiday". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Sing and Be Happy". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ Monush, Barry (2003). Screen World Presents the Encyclopedia of Hollywood Film Actors: From the silent era to 1965. Hal Leonard Corporation. p. 179. ISBN 978-1-55783-551-2.
- ^ "Wake Up and Live". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Thin Ice". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Life Begins in College". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Love and Hisses". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Keep Smiling". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Sally, Irene and Mary". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Josette". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "My Lucky Star". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Just Around the Corner". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Tail Spin". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Too Busy to Work". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Day-Time Wife". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Free, Blonde and 21". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Sailor's Lady". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Manhattan Heartbeat". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "For Beauty's Sake". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Hold That Ghost". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Sun Valley Serenade". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Two Latins from Manhattan". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Yokel Boy". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Sweetheart of the Fleet". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "He's My Guy". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Two Señoritas from Chicago". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Around the World". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Kansas City Kitty". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "She Gets her Man". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "George White's Scandals of 1945". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "She Wrote the Book". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Make Mine Laughs". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "The Traveling Saleswoman". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Love That Brute". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "The Groom Wore Spurs". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
- ^ "Harem Girl". catalog.afi.com. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
Further reading
edit- Ohmart, Ben. Hold That Joan – The Life, Laughs & Films of Joan Davis. Albany: BearManor Media, 2007. ISBN 1-59393-046-1
- Rapp, Philip. The Television Scripts of Philip Rapp. Albany: BearManor Media, 2006. ISBN 1-59393-070-4.
- Karol, Michael. Sitcom Queens: Divas of the Small Screen. iUniverse, 2006. pp. 22–24. ISBN 0-595-40251-8.
External links
edit