Joan Weldon

Born on August 5, 1930, in San Francisco, California, Joan Louise Welton was left without a mother at the age of five, so she was raised by her grandmother, who lived in San Francisco. She began her artistic career as a choir singer for the City Opera Company. After singing with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, she was recruited for “Kean,” a Broadway musical. 

Joan Weldon began her film career in The System , a 1953 film produced by Warner, which had her under contract for some time. The company cast her as the lead in the B-movie Mankind in Danger, by  Gordon Douglas , where she shared the screen with  James Whitmore  and  Edmund Gwenn .. In the tape, scientists discover strange footprints in a New Mexico desert. It turns out that the culprits are giant ants, mutated by radiation released during an atomic bomb test. “When I read the script, I only knew that my character was a scientist,” the actress commented in an interview. “I was hoping that at some point there would be some romance, but the director didn’t want any of that. My character didn’t interact much with anyone because the stars were supposed to be the ants. Basically, it had an anti-nuclear message. But Jack Warner, The studio president didn’t have much confidence in this title. Even the director, Douglas, was kidding about it, going so far as to say that they should have brought in Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin as leads.” Nevertheless,

Also, Joan Weldonhe appeared in westerns, such as  Duel at the Gorge , with  Joel McCrea , and  Crunchy Point , with  Fred MacMurray , and when his contract with Warners ended, he was in the MGM musical Deep In My Heart , directed by Stanley Donen . He never left the stage, so for example he did a long tour with the musical “Oklahoma”, which had a huge impact.

She is survived by her husband of 56 years, David, her daughter, Melissa, her grandchildren Sienna, Alexander and Ella, and Claudia, her stepdaughter.