Background
Joanne Dru was born on 31 january 1923 in Logan, West Virginia, United States.
Joanne Dru was born on 31 january 1923 in Logan, West Virginia, United States.
She had been a model and—to add spice to the Warhol stew—a “Samba Siren" before she made her movie debut in Abie’s Irish Rose (46, Edward Sutherland). But it was as Tess Millay in Red River (48, Howard Hawks), barely fazed by the arrow that pins her to a wagon and still able to take pleasure in smacking Montgomery Clift’s face, that she established herself.
John Ford then took her up—in uniform in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (49) and as “Denver" in Wagon toaster (50). She was more serious and less striking in All the King’s Men (49, Robert Rossen). That was the extent of her real prominence. She slipped into more modest adventure films in less carefully elaborated parts: 711 Ocean Drive (50, Joseph M. Newman); Vengeance Valley (51, Richard Thorpe); Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell (51, Henry Koster); Return of the Texan (52, Delmer Daves); The Pride of St Louis (52, Harmon Iones); My Pal Gus (52, Robert Parrish); Thunder Bay (53, Anthony Mann); Hannah Lee (53, Lee Garmes and John Ireland—her then husband), a lost 3D movie; Forbidden (53. Rudolph Maté); The Siege at Red River (54, Maté); Day of Triumph (54, Irving Pichel); Hell on Frisco Bay (55, Frank Tuttle); Dark Avenger (55, Henry Levin); Siiwerely Yours (55, Gordon Douglas); Three Ring Circus (55, Joseph Pevney)—this last as Dean’s girlfriend in a Martin and Lewis comedy, a sure sign of distress.
Perhaps that first freshness had gone. Since then, she has worked only rarely: September Storm (60, Byron Haskin); Sylvia (65, Douglas); and Super Fuzz (81, Sergio Corbucci).
It is a sign ol the times that tins wholesome, very prettv, and assured actress saw fit to change her name. Twenty years later, anyone called Letitia La Cock would have been welcomed rapturously at the Warhol factory and could hardly fail to have been lit up with the Day-Glo camp of the name. Her invented name sounded much more plausible, especially as the dark-eyed tomboy to be found in various wagon trains heading West.