Joan Ann Hackett
March 1, 1934 – October 8, 1983
Joan Hackett was an American actress of film, stage, and television.
Born in East Harlem in New York City, she was one of three children. Her mother, Mary Esposito, was Italian and her father, John Hackett, was Irish. She attended Catholic schools in New York City. When she was a senior in high school, she left school to become a successful model, and was on the cover of Harper’s Junior Bazaar in 1952. Twentieth Century Fox then offered her a movie contract, but Joan turned it down to attend acting classes at Lee Strasberg’s Actor’s Studio in New York City.
In 1959 Joan made her Broadway debut in the John Gielgud production
Much Ado About Nothing in 1959,
and also appeared in her first television appearance in Young Dr. Malone the same year.
Joan Hackett as Gail Prentiss in Young Doctor Malone.
In 1961 Joan won a Theatre World Award, an Obie Award, and a Drama Desk Award
for her role as Chris an off Broadway production, Call Me By My Rightful Name.
Do you recognize a very young Robert Duval?
Joan Hackett and Robert Duval in Call My By My Rightful Name
Over the next two decades she went on to over 60 credited roles
on television, stage, and screen.
In 1966 Joan received a British Academy of Film and Television award nomination
for best foreign actress for the 1966 film The Group.
Joan played Dottie Renfew, and idealist undergrad who had poor judgement in men.
The Group
In 1967 Joan co-starred with Charlton Heston in the moody, idiosyncratic western Will Penny. She gave an understated, subtle performance as the down-to-earth frontier woman who befriends the hero, shares in his ordeals, then is left by him when he realizes that there is no future in their relationship.
Will Penny
In stark contrast to Will Pennywas her role in the western comedy
Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969).
She was very much in her element as feisty, accident-prone mayor's daughter "Prudy Perkins". In this film, she displayed a talent for visual comedy reminiscent of Lucille Ball. There was also great chemistry and clever verbal interaction between her and co-star James Garner, as the newly appointed sheriff, who catches her character in various embarrassing situations.
Joan Hackett Support Your Local Sheriff
In 1978 Joan was also highly praised for her performance as Christine Mannon in Mourning Becomes Electra.
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In 1962, Joan played Esther Fortune in a Twilight Zone episode, A Piano in the House.
Barry Morse played her husband, Gerry Fortune.
This episode was named as one of the ten best Twilight Zone episodes
by the New York Post.
Joan Hackett appeared twice as a guest star in Bonanza.
In 1965 she played Margarita in Woman of Fire.
A close friend of Pernell Roberts,
the two reportedly worked well together,
creating a memorable episode.
She returned to Bonanza in 1971 to play Judith Corman
in Five desperate Woman with Anjanette Comer.
For the 1981 film Only When I Laugh, Joan won a Golden Globe Award and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Marsha Mason and Joan Hackett
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39th annual golden globe award ceremony
with Richard Chamberlain and Debbie Allen (Fame)
on January 30, 1982
Joan Hackett's humorous remarks being at 2:48 announcement.
She was obviously ill with the cancer that would take her life
just under two years later.
Seated in a wheel chair, she was helped to the stage.
Joan Hackett has been described as being a very unconventional leading lady, and reportedly directors sometimes found her difficult to work with. But this strong-minded actress had an undeniable talent and presence that shown through her performances, and she never hesitated being unglamorous whenever the role demanded.
Yikes! This looks dirty AND dangerous!
A firm believer in the paranormal, while on location in Texas filming the solar energy docudrama, Harnessing the Sun (1980), she persuaded the film's director, Dirk Wayne Summers, to fly in a clairvoyant-aura reader. She arranged for the entire crew to receive extrasensory readings. The clairvoyant spent a week with the film's cast and crew. When Summers was asked by a reporter from a Dallas newspaper why he approved such unusual arrangements - and did CBS know - Summers answered that "Joan Hackett is so great to work with and so perfect in her role that I would have flown in Uri Geller if Joan had wanted him."
Joan was married from 1966 to 1973 to fellow actor Richard Mulligan, who also appeared in The Group.
Sharing a dedication to social activism with Pernell Roberts and other actors of the day, Joan Hackett worked for the Equal Rights Amendment and the use of solar energy. She fought for the preservation of the Helen Hayes and Morosco Theaters in the Times Square area, both of which were razed to make way for the new Marriott Marquis Hotel.
Joan Hackett was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and fought the disease for 18 months until her death in 1983.
A few weeks prior to her death, hospitalized, and quite ill, Joan checked herself out of the hospital to host a wedding party at her Beverly Hills home for Carrie Fisher and Paul Simon. Just a few days later, her condition rapidly deteriorated. She then spent her last few weeks at Encino Hospital under aggressive treatment. She lost her battle on Saturday, October 8th 1983 at 9:15 pm at the age of 49. At her bedside at Encino hospital when she died were Marita Flick, a niece, Christopher Flick, her niece's husband, and Michael Lucas, her secretary and a friend of the family.
Her friend and publicity agent, Bobby Zarem, remembered, ''One of the things that is so sad to me is that she was just beginning to have commercial success, to be known by the public and accepted in the way she had been known by her peers. ''She was considered by peers to be one of the pure, perfectionist people in her craft.''
Another friend, actress Nancy Livingston Olson, remembered, ''She refused to give in to it until very close to the end, until she had no choice,' and she handled that with courage and acceptance, a kind of intelligence and wisdom. There are two words you have to use to describe Joan - she had total integrity in relation to her work, her life, everything. And she was completely uncompromising.''
Her remains are interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, in the Abbey of the Psalms,
where her epitaph reads "Go Away — I'm Asleep",
a humorous reference to her love of beauty sleep.
Her death prematurely ended a career spanning more than two decades.
Joan Hackett 
