Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. (also known as Warner Bros. Pictures, or simply Warner Bros.—the shortened form of the former official, sometimes still used, formal corporate name: Warner Brothers
to appear in The UnsuspectedThe Unsuspected is a film noir starring Claude Rains, Audrey Totter, and Joan Caulfield. The black-and-white film was directed by Michael Curtiz, based on a novel written by Charlotte Armstrong, and released by Warner Brothers.- Plot :...
(1947) alongside Claude RainsClaude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 47 years; he later held American citizenship. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them The Invisible Man, the corrupt senator in Mr...
and Audrey TotterAudrey Mary Totter is an American actress and former MGM contract star of Austrian and Swedish descent...
.
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Joan Caulfield (June 1 1922 - June 18 1991) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actress and former fashion model. After being discovered by Broadway producers, she began a stage career in 1943 that eventually lead to signing as an actress with
Paramount PicturesParamount Pictures Corporation is a Worldwide American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, California. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is the world's oldest existing American film studio; it is also the last...
.
Born while her family resided in
East Orange, New JerseyEast Orange is a city in Essex County, New Jersey, USA. As of the United States 2000 Census, the city had a total population of 69,824. The United States Census Bureau's 2005 population estimate for East Orange was 68,190....
, she moved to
West OrangeWest Orange is a township in central Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the township population was 44,943...
during childhood but continued attending
Miss Beard's SchoolMorristown-Beard School is an independent coeducational day school, serving students in sixth through twelfth grade, located in Morristown, in Morris County, New Jersey. Morristown-Beard School is the product of the 1971 merger of two institutions, Miss Beard's School for girls, founded in 1891,...
in
Orange, New JerseyThe City of Orange is a township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the township population was 32,868...
. During her teenage years, the family moved to New York City where Joan eventually attended
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
.
One of her most memorable roles was when she was lent out to
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. (also known as Warner Bros. Pictures, or simply Warner Bros.—the shortened form of the former official, sometimes still used, formal corporate name: Warner Brothers
to appear in The UnsuspectedThe Unsuspected is a film noir starring Claude Rains, Audrey Totter, and Joan Caulfield. The black-and-white film was directed by Michael Curtiz, based on a novel written by Charlotte Armstrong, and released by Warner Brothers.- Plot :...
(1947) alongside Claude RainsClaude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 47 years; he later held American citizenship. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them The Invisible Man, the corrupt senator in Mr...
and Audrey TotterAudrey Mary Totter is an American actress and former MGM contract star of Austrian and Swedish descent...
. Later in life she appeared mostly on television, appearing on programs such as CheyenneCheyenne is a western television series of 108 black-and-white episodes broadcast on ABC from 1955 to 1963. The show was the first hour-long western, and in fact the first hour-long dramatic series of any kind, with regular characters, to last more than one season...
, BarettaBaretta is a American detective television series which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1978. The show was a milder version of a successful 1973–74 ABC series, Toma, starring Tony Musante as chameleon-like, real-life New Jersey police officer David Toma...
, and Murder, She WroteMurder, She Wrote was an American television mystery series starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher. The series aired for twelve seasons from 1984 to 1996 on the CBS network. It was followed by four TV films and a spin-off series, The Law & Harry McGraw...
, with Angela LansburyAngela Brigid Lansbury, CBE is an English actress and singer whose career has spanned seven decades. Her first film appearance was in Gaslight , for which she received an Academy Award nomination as a malevolent maid, and she expanded her repertoire to Broadway and television in the 1950s...
. In the 1957-1958 season, Caulfield starred in her own short-lived NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices in Burbank,California...
situation comedyA situation comedy, usually referred to as a sitcom, is a genre of comedy programs which originated in radio. Today, sitcoms are found almost exclusively on television as one of its dominant narrative forms...
, SallySally is a situation comedy which aired on NBC from September 15, 1957 to March 30, 1958. The series is the first filmed television series produced by Paramount Studios.-Synopsis:...
in the role of a traveling companion to an elderly widow, played by Marion LorneMarion Lorne MacDougall was an American actress. After a career in theatre in New York and London, Lorne made her first film in 1951, and for the remainder of her life, played small roles in films and television...
. At midseason, Gale GordonGale Gordon was an American character actor perhaps best remembered as Lucille Ball's longtime television foil — and particularly as cantankerously combustible, tightfisted bank executive Theodore J. Mooney, on Ball's second television situation comedy, The Lucy Show...
and Arte JohnsonArthur Stanton Eric "Arte" Johnson is an American comic actor. Johnson was a regular on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. His best-remembered "character" was that of a German soldier with the catchphrase: "Very interesting, but.....
joined the cast.
An urban legend states that Caulfield's film Dear Ruth (1947) inspired author J.D. Salinger to name the protagonist of his novel The Catcher in the RyeThe Catcher in the Rye is a 1951 novel by J. D. Salinger. Originally published for adults, the novel has become a common part of high school and college curricula throughout the English-speaking world; it has also been translated into almost all of the world's major languages.Around 250,000 copies...
(1951) "Holden CaulfieldHolden Morrissey Caulfield is a fictional character, the protagonist and antihero of J.D. Salinger's 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye.-In The Catcher in the Rye:Holden Caulfield is the narrator and protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye...
" after seeing a movie theater marquee with the film's stars: Caulfield and William HoldenWilliam Holden was an American film actor.Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1954, and the Emmy Award for Best Actor in 1974....
. However, Holden Caulfield first appeared in Salinger's short story "I'm Crazy" in Collier's magazine on December 22, 1945, a year and a half before Dear Ruth . A more common version of the legend claims that Salinger was taken by Joan Caulfield upon first seeing her in a modeling photo or a publicity still or a film. Since Joan's career began prior to 1945, this more common version of the legend makes his using her surname for his character entirely possible. Specifically and incorrectly citing Dear Ruth as Salinger's inspiration is most probably a later embellishment of the legend.
She died, aged 69, from cancerCancer is a class of diseases in which a group of cells display uncontrolled growth , invasion , and sometimes metastasis...
at Cedars-Sinai Medical CenterCedars-Sinai Medical Center is a hospital located in Los Angeles, California, USA.-History:From 1906 to 1910, Dr. Sarah Vasen, the first woman doctor in Los Angeles acted as superintendent of what was then the Kaspare Cohn Hospital....
in Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the municipality of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123.445 inhabitants...
, and had lived in Beverly Hills, CaliforniaBeverly Hills is a city in the western part of Los Angeles County, California, United States. Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together entirely surrounded by the city of Los Angeles. The area's "Platinum Triangle" of wealthy neighborhoods is formed by Beverly Hills and...
.
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