About Joan Davis Comedienne Joan Davis was the daughter
of a Minnesota-based train dispatcher. A performer in local amateur
productions since the age of 3, Joan sang, danced and clowned at
summer camps, amusement parks, and small-time vaudeville houses,
marrying her "straight man" Si Willis in 1931. While performing in
Los Angeles, Joan strenuously campaigned for an opportunity to appear
before the cameras; her first film was the 1935 educational two-reeler Way
Up Thar, directed by Mack Sennett and co-starring several members
of Buster Keaton's family. This led to her first feature film, Millions in the Air (1935).
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After a desultory RKO contract, Joan and her husband returned to
vaudeville; she was rediscovered for pictures by 20th Century-Fox's
Darryl F. Zanuck, who cast Joan in raucous Martha Raye-like
slapstick roles in such films as Sonja Henie's Thin Ice (1937),
the Ritz Bros.' Kentucky Moonshine (1938) and Alice Faye's Tail Spin (1939).
In 1941, she became a regular on Rudy Vallee's radio program,
and was memorably co-starred with Abbott and Costello in Hold That Ghost (1941).
During the 1940s, Joan was top billed in several energetic "B"
efforts like Kansas City Kitty (1944) and He Gets Her Man (1945),
and was promoted to star of her own top-rated radio series for
Sealtest dairy products. After her film career ended with the
bottom-barrel Columbia farce Harem Girl, Joan formed her own production
company to produce the popular TV sitcom, I Married Joan,
which ran from 1952 through 1955 on the networks,
then seemingly forever in syndicated reruns.
Co-starring on I Married Joan was Jim Backus (Mr. Magoo voice and
later Mr. Howell on "Gilligan's Island) and, as Joan's sister, the actress'
daughter, Beverly Wills. Joan Davis died of a sudden heart attack at the age of 53, shortly after completing the pilot film for a new TV series.
About Jim Backus
Actor, author. Born James Gilmore Backus on February 25, 1913, in Cleveland, Ohio. For five decades, Jim Backus entertained audiences in a variety of media, starting out in radio and moving on to film and television. Two of his trademark roles were the wealthy and snooty Thurston Howell III on Gilligan’s Island and Mr. Magoo, an optically challenged and bumbling cartoon character. The son of an engineer, he was more interested in golf and acting than in school. Backus worked for a stock theater company during his teens. In one of the company’s productions, he had a small role while future film star Clark Gable had the lead.
Wanting his son to focus on academics, Backus’s father sent him to the Kentucky Military Institute for a time where he met and befriended Victor Mature, another future professional actor. But Backus struggled his way through high school and was able to convince his father to let him skip a traditional college education. Instead he went to New York City to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Graduating in 1933, Backus spent two years working in a variety of stage productions and in summer stock before trying his hand at radio. Adept at molding his booming voice into different characters, he was a freelance performer and appeared on numerous radio programs, including soap operas and The Kate Smith Hour. Backus also made his Broadway debut around this time in Hitch Your Wagon, a comedy, in 1937. Later that year, he appeared in the drama Too Many Heroes.
In the 1940s, Backus scored his biggest radio success on The Alan Young Show. He created a stuffy, upper crust character named Hubert Updyke III, who was known for making such quips as “Careful, or I’ll have your mouth washed out with domestic champagne.” By the end of the decade, Backus was beginning his film career. One of his earliest roles was in the football drama Easy Living (1949) with Lucille Ball and old friend Victor Mature.
Also in 1949, Backus was selected to voice one of the characters for a cartoon entitled Ragtime Bear. Little did he know that the character, Quincy Magoo, a nearsighted fellow with a very selective take on reality, would become so hugely popular. Backus spent about three decades as Magoo in his various incarnations from cartoon shorts to television series to a full-length film.
On the small screen, Backus spent three years on the sitcom I Married Joan, which debuted in the fall of 1952. He played Judge Bradley Stevens, husband to Joan Stevens (Joan Davis). Each episode featured a case in front of Bradley, a domestic judge, and its parallels to his domestic life. After the series ended, Backus gave some of his best film performances. He earned praise for his work on the comedy Francis in the Navy (1955) and the teenage drama Rebel Without a Cause (1955) with James Dean. In Rebel Without a Cause, Backus played Dean’s father, a man befuddled by his son’s actions and oppressed by his domineering wife.
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