Joanne Dru

She died from lymphedema in Los Angeles, California. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1645 Vine Street. Although regarded as a capable and popular film actress, it was for her contributions to television that Dru was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1944 she was nominated for The Constant Nymph. Her film career began to fade by the end of the 1950s but she continued working frequently in television. The next year she was again nominated, for Suspicion, and this time she won the award. She later lamented that she had been typecast in western films, commenting that once an actress became typecast, that was the end, and adding that she had never liked horses. In 1940, Joan received an Academy Award nomination for Rebecca.

She also gave a well received performance in the drama film All the King's Men (1949). Her career seemed to be ready to die, even as her sister's blossomed, but Joan changed her name to Fontaine and began receiving bigger parts in such movies as You Can't Beat Love, Quality Street, The Women and Gunga Din. Over the next decade she appeared frequently in films, most often cast in westerns such as the John Wayne films Red River (1948) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949). Because Olivia was using the family name, Joan began acting as Joan Burfield, in No More Ladies in 1935. Dru was spotted by a talent scout and made her first film appearance in Abie's Irish Rose in 1946. Both sisters moved to Hollywood to start film careers. During this time Dru met and married the popular singer Dick Haymes and when they moved to Hollywood she found work in theater. Joan returned to Tokyo to attend the American School there, but she came back in 1934 to find that her sister was making a name for herself on the stage.

Born Joanne Letitia LaCock in Logan, West Virginia, Dru came to New York City in 1940, and after finding employment as a model, was chosen by Al Jolson to appear in the cast of his Broadway show Hold Onto Your Hats. But Joan's father soon went back to Japan, and he and his wife divorced. Joanne Dru (January 31, 1922 – September 10, 1996) was an American film actress. Because Joan and her mother both had frequent illnesses, the family moved to Saratoga, California for their health. Born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland in Tokyo, Japan, the daughter of a British patent attorney with a practice in Japan, she is the younger sister of actress Olivia de Havilland. Joan Fontaine (born October 22, 1917) is an international actress.