Joan Woodbury

Tall, provocative actress Joan Woodbury (aka Nana Martinez) was born Joanne Elmer Woodbury in Los Angeles, California, on December 17, 1915. Of Danish, English and Indian heritage, she was educated for seven years in a convent. Trained in dance, she was already performing in her mid-teens by the time she graduated from Hollywood High School. A solo dancer at one point with the Agua Caliente dance company, she broke into films at age 19, her exotic beauty being her "in" to the picture business. For many years Joan was relegated to atmospheric bit parts as assorted dancing girls, barmaids, secretaries and the like. Once she progressed to co-starring roles, her characters often provided a foreign allure (Hispanic, French, Asian) playing femmes with such desirous names as Lolita, Dolores and Toto. She managed to churn out a feisty score of ladies and girlfriends for about a decade and a half (1934-49). Woodbury was featured in a number of "Charlie Chan" entries of the 1930s, particularly Charlie Chan on Broadway (1937) wherein she turned heads performing a very sultry dance routine. A resilient western player as well, she appeared opposite a number of cowboy heroes including William Boyd when she played her memorable role as Dolores in The Eagle's Brood (1935). Her first co-starring role, in fact, came opposite sagebrush star Tim McCoy (in a dual role) in Bulldog Courage (1935). One of her finest moments in the limelight has to be her titular role in the Columbia serial Brenda Starr, Reporter (1945), in which she gave a fine, spirited performance as the intrepid heroine. After retiring from films in the 1960s, Woodbury became a producer/director of grand and light operas for the Redlands (California) Bowl. Married twice -- to actor/producer Henry Wilcoxon and then actor Ray Mitchell -- Joan and her second husband subsequently co-founded the Palm Springs-based Valley Players Guild, staging plays that featured other veteran performers. She died of a respiratory ailment in 1989 and was survived by her three children by her first marriage to Wilcoxon.