S

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• School –

 

 

Living a vaudeville life meant that Joan never regularly visited school. Travel prevented her from attending for more than a few weeks here, a few there...

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Joan Blondell: “I became educated with no schooling. Once-in-a-while I'd go to school, but not often. If the authorities were alert in some towns, they'd come backstage and say, 'let's get to school.' I must have gone to anywhere from forty to fifty schools in my life. For a week.” (Source: John Kobal – People Will Talk, 1986)

 

• Sexual Harassment –

 

Joan was sexually molested by a school's principal during childhood. During her teen years, she was raped by a police officer. She was also harassed by a millionaire. He offered to drive her home after she’d been given a party in Dallas.

 

Sadly, it seems that even when she was about 3 or 4 years old, someone tried getting into her pants.

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Joan Blondell: “In Australia, a man tried to get me behind the bushes with a bar of candy. Luckily I was told to stay away from men with bars of candy.” (Source: Johnson).

 

• Sinners’ Holiday (1930) –

 

First movie of both Joan and James Cagney at WB. They both starred in the original stage production, which was titled Penny Arcade. Since they were newcomers to film and not marquee names, WB had them play supporting roles instead of the lead parts they’d had on stage.

 

• Stand-In (1937) –

 

This movie directed by Tay Garnett and co-starring Leslie Howard was among her favorite films.

 

• Stanwyck, Barbara (1907-1990) –

 

Joan's co-star in the movies Illicit (1931) and Night Nurse (1931). During the filming of Illicit, they became friends.

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Joan Blondell about seeing B. Stanwyck on the stage in Burlesque: “I was never so overcome in my life. Never again have I experienced anything like it. [She] made me cry, laugh, want to hug her.” (Source: V. Wilson: A Life of Barbara Stanwyck)

 

• Stuttering –

 

Joan had stuttering problems at different points in her life. These included the last days of her marriage to George Barnes and when Dick Powell left their home to be with June Allyson. After Powell’s departure, she suffered from nervous exhaustion and started to stutter.

 

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T

 

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• Taylor, Elizabeth (1932 – 2011) –

 

Elizabeth Taylor married Joan's former husband Mike Todd in 1957.

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Joan Blondell: “She didn't take Mike away from me. Mike and I had been divorced for five years when Elizabeth and he fell in love. I thought he was a very lucky man to have won her. She is probably the most beautiful woman in the world, and a fantastic actress. She is the movie star, the last of the great ones.” (Source: NYPL, 1968 as found in M. Kennedy's book on Joan)

 

• Theater 80 St. Marks –

 

In 1971, Joan and Ruby Keeler left their hand and footprints in front this New York City theatre.

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• There's That Woman Again (1939) –

 

After the success of There's Always a Woman, Columbia immediately announced this sequel. The part was taken over by Virginia Bruce because of Joan's second pregnancy.

 

• Three On a Match (1932) –

 

Movie that starred Joan next to Ann Dvorak, Bette Davis, and Warren William. Joan and Bette became friends during filming.

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See also Bette Davis.

 

• Todd, Mike (1909 - 1958) –

 

Joan's third husband. Broadway producer, gambler and entrepreneur.

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After he saw her burlesque routine in Cry ‘Havoc’, he wanted her to play Ethel Merman's part in Something for the Boys. She went to New York to test for the part, but her inability to sing Merman-style cost her the part.

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Todd, totally smitten by Blondell, developed a show especially for her. It was called The Naked Genius. It was basically a flop. As she and Todd spent time together, a relationship developed between them. This (among other reasons) led to her divorce from Dick Powell.

 

After 3 tumultuous years, Joan and Mike married on July 5, 1947 in Las Vegas.

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Once Joan and Mike were married, she and her children left California so they could move into his New York City apartment. Soon after, they bought a house in the suburbs of New York. Joan paid for the house. It was the biggest she ever owned. Mike Todd Jr. also moved in with the family. Joan lent her husband $80.000 for a stage production. Naturally, she didn't get the money back.

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During her marriage to Todd, Joan made very few movies, even doing none for a period of three whole years.

He was jealous and violent, especially when drunk.

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They got divorced on June 8, 1950. Joan charged him with cruelty.

 

• Todd, Mike Jr. (1929 - 2002) –

 

Son of Joan's third husband Mike Todd. After his father married Joan, Mike Jr. moved from New York City to their newly bought house. He and Joan shared a very good relationship.

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Mike Todd Jr.: “Joan generated tremendous enthusiasm for our new home and tried to instill this feeling into Norman [Powell] & Ellen [Powell]. She worked tirelessly at getting us settled. I was crazy about her. (Source: M. Todd Jr. - A Valuable Property The Life of Mike Todd, 1982)

 

• Traveling Saleslady (1935) –

 

Was her first movie after she gave birth to her son Norman Scott.

 

• Tree Grows in Brooklyn, A (1945) –

 

Elia Kazan's debut as a director, starring Joan in the part of Aunt Sissy. It was her favorite role.

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Joan Blondell: “Before that, there was a pattern. I was the fizz on the soda: I just showed my big boobs and tiny waist and acted glib and flirty. Once you do something like that, it's hard for you to come out of that trap. Then Tree came along and Kazan let me have a moment or two of tenderness, of maturity, that nobody had ever given me before.“ (Source: Life 1971)

 

• Turtles –

 

When Joan's pugs 'Bridey' and 'Fresh' died within a year, she got two little dime-store turtles. She named them 'Turt' and 'Squirt'.

 

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U

 

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• USO (United States Organizations) –

 

In 1942, Joan left her family to spend 6 months visiting nearly 7000 U.S. Army camps. She and her USO vaudeville unit went to six camps a day.

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Afterwards, she spent 3 months touring the North Atlantic with a solo 15-minute song-and-dance act she put together herself. The first half was jokes, and the second a tame striptease. The running gag was that all her zippers got stuck, and she would invite some of the GIs onstage to help her out. The zippers never unzipped, though, no matter how hard they tried. The act was a sensation at every camp.

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Joan did more than regular duty during her visits. She talked and ate with the soldiers, danced with them, and wrote their letters. Sometimes she even let them cut off locks of her hair to send back home. She rode in their planes and fired their guns, and once even made a parachute jump.

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Two tanks and one bulldozer were named after her. She was made honorary staff sergeant.

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Joan Blondell: “Being a truck horse, I was built to take whatever came along. There is no time for being tired, or for complaints. You keep going, because you can't let the boys down. You laugh when you want to cry, and act happy and gay when you're so sad inside it hurts.“ (Source: New York Times, 1943)

 

 

W

 

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• Walk of Fame –

 

Joan received a star on the Walk of Fame in 1960. It can be found at 6311 Hollywood Blvd.

 

• WAMPAS “Baby Star” –

 

In September 1931, the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers (WAMPAS) selected Joan as one of Hollywood's “Baby Stars”.

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In 1934, she was chosen as the WAMPAS “Baby Star” with the most progress since 1931/32.

 

• Warner Brothers (WB) –

 

Film studio that gave Joan her first contract in 1930 and a long-term one in 1931. She left the studio together with then husband Dick Powell in 1939. For a very long time, she was unhappy about being typecast and the bad scripts she was given.

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Joan Blondell: “I was offered big dough to stay, but my husband was leaving and it would have been awkward. He didn't leave on warm terms.” (Source: Interview by J. Bawden, 1972).

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Work at WB was excruciating at times.

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“[The studio was a place of] hard, hard labour and gruesome hours. The studio did protect you because you were a moneymaker – but it was backbreaking and it was a good thing that you were young or you couldn't have stood it. The biggest treat was when you got time off to go to the bathroom.” (Source: Munter)

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“We started work at five in the morning. Make up, all that junk, then whammo on the nose! Straight over to the set at eight, knowing all your lines. We'd work clean through the day until after sundown, then on Saturday and always right through Saturday night. They'd bring sandwiches like straw for the horses and we'd finally make it into bed on Sunday morning as the sun hit the pillows.” (Source: New York Times, 1972).

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See also Appendicits.

 

• “Whimpsy-Poo” –

 

Private nickname for June Allyson between Joan and her daughter Ellen Powell.

 

• Work –

 

Joan was never a lazy person. She basically worked for all her life, except during the 3 year period when she was married to Mike Tood.

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Joan Blondell: “Without work, what is life?”

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“We used to work six days a week [at Warner Brothers], day and evening, and all night on Saturday. I'd go home on Sunday morning and fall into bed with my makeup on, blinking from exhaustion. They got their money's worth out of me – and it wasn't much, by the way.” (Source: Life 1971)

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“Retirement doesn't really come into my way of thinking. I don't think I could do it. I've never stopped working in my life. Even in all the years since Warner Brothers, I have worked somewhere. There was only one period of three years when I didn't; I was married to someone who wanted me to quit and that was perfectly all right with me. But aside from that, even if I wasn't in pictures, I started on the road taking shows out, then coming back and starting in again here.” (Source: Killer Tomatoes - Fifteen Tough Film Dames, 2004)

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Norman Powell: “Mom didn't talk about her work. She didn't bring it home. The job was important to her, but it wasn't her passion. It was a way to make money.” (Source: Interview with M. Kennedy, 2004)