Joan Woodbury

Tall, alluring actress Joan Woodbury was a professional dancer in the Los Angeles area before entering films in the early '30s. Almost exclusively confined to B-pictures, Woodbury had few pretensions about her "art" and disdained any sort of star treatment; while being interviewed for the leading role in the independently produced Paper Bullets (1941), Woodbury ignored the fact that the producers couldn't afford any office furniture and sat on the floor. While she claimed to have never made more than 300 dollars a week as an actress, Woodbury was a thorough professional, treating even the shabbiest assignment as a job of importance. She was proudest of the time when, while starring in the Columbia serial Brenda Starr, Reporter (1945), she prevented the film from going over budget by performing a complicated five-minute scene in a single take -- which earned her a spontaneous round of applause from the crew members. After retiring from films in the 1960s, Woodbury organized and maintained the Palm Springs-based Valley Player's Guild, staging plays which featured other veteran performers. Joan Woodbury was married twice, to actor/producer Henry Wilcoxon and actor Ray Mitchell.