Janelle Johnson was an actress in films of the 1940s. She married actor George Dolenz

George Dolenz

George Dolenz was an American film actor born in Trieste , in the city's Slovene community.-Biography:...

 (1908–63) and was the mother of Micky Dolenz

Micky Dolenz

George Michael "Micky" Dolenz, Jr. is an American actor, musician, television director, radio personality and theater director, best known as a member of the 1960s made-for-television band The Monkees.-Biography:...

 of the 1960s pop group the Monkees. Her English daughter-in-law was Samantha Juste

Samantha Juste

Samantha Juste , became known on British television in the mid-1960s as the “disc girl” on the BBC’s Top of the Pops. In 1968 she married Micky Dolenz of the Monkees. Their daughter is the actress Ami Dolenz....

, co-host of BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 television's Top of the Pops

Top of the Pops

Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. After 25 December 2006 it became a radio program, now hosted by Tony Blackburn...

in its early days. Her granddaughter Ami Dolenz

Ami Dolenz

Ami Dolenz is an American television and film actress and producer.- Early life and career :Born in Burbank, California into a show business family, Dolenz is the daughter of Micky Dolenz of the 1960s group the Monkees, and British television presenter Samantha Juste...

 also became a film actress.

Background and career

Johnson was born in Austin

Austin, Texas

Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...

, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

. She won the drama award at the University of Texas at Austin and performed on a local radio show called Janelle Sings. Her films included David O. Selznick

David O. Selznick

David O. Selznick was an American film producer. He is best known for having produced Gone with the Wind and Rebecca , both of which earned him an Oscar for Best Picture.-Early years:...

's Academy Award-winning Since You Went Away

Since You Went Away

Since You Went Away is a 1944 film distributed by United Artists, a big-budget epic about the American home front during World War II. It was directed by John Cromwell and adapted and produced by David O. Selznick from the novel Since You Went Away: Letters to a Soldier from His Wife by Margaret...

(1944), with Claudette Colbert

Claudette Colbert

Claudette Colbert was a French-born American-based actress of stage and film.Born in Paris, France and raised in New York City, Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the 1920s, progressing to film with the advent of talking pictures...

, Jennifer Jones, Robert Walker

Robert Hudson Walker

Robert Hudson Walker was an American actor. He is probably best known for his role as Bruno Anthony in Alfred Hitchcock's 1951 thriller Strangers on a Train.-Early life:...

 and Shirley Temple

Shirley Temple

Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...

, and The Brute Man (1946), directed by Jean Yarbrough

Jean Yarbrough

Jean Yarbrough was an American film director.-Biography:He was born in Marianna, the seat of Lee County in southeastern Arkansas. After attending the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, he entered the film business in 1922, first as a propman, but he steadily rose in the ranks to...

, with Rondo Hatton

Rondo Hatton

Rondo Hatton was an American actor who had a brief, but prolific career playing thuggish bit parts in many Hollywood B-movies. He was known for his brutish facial features which were the result of acromegaly, a disorder of the pituitary gland.-Biography:Hatton was born Rondo K...

 and Jane "Poni" Adams

Poni Adams

Jane "Poni" Adams was an American actress in radio, films, and television in the 1940s and 1950s.- Acting career :She was born in San Antonio, Texas, and received a full scholarship to Juilliard, which she turned down to spend years studying at the Pasadena Playhouse...

.

Personal life

Johnson met her Trieste

Trieste

Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...

-born Slovene husband, George Dolenz

George Dolenz

George Dolenz was an American film actor born in Trieste , in the city's Slovene community.-Biography:...

, while performing in a stage play called Return Engagement, but largely gave up acting after their marriage. She and Dolenz had four children, Micky, the eldest, born in 1945, and three daughters. After Dolenz's death in 1963, she married, in 1965, Robert Scott, a minister of religion who officiated at the wedding in 1968 of Micky Dolenz and Samantha Juste. Scott died in 1985.

Johnson died of cancer in Los Gatos, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 on her 72nd birthday.

External links