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.
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
Films
Davis' 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
Swan Soap ad featuring Davis' radio show, 1945
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
Davis 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
On 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]
^"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, ISBN978-0786477845/ISBN0786477849.
