She was born Joan Marie Therese MacGillicuddy and grew up in East Melbourne, the second daughter of Doctor Maurice MacGillicuddy and his wife Nell. Her father was a well known Melbourne doctor and both parents were active in the Catholic Church and Melbourne charity work.
Joan and older sister Mauricette attended Catholic Ladies College in nearby Grey Street, East Melbourne. Joan studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and was presented at Court in July 1937.
As children, Joan and Mauricette were encouraged to develop a love of music Joan also performed onstage in charity pantomimes in Melbourne in 1930 and 1931. According to John Meredyth Lucas"s memoirs, Maurice had discovered he had cancer, and decided to take the family for an extended trip overseas, to make the most of life while he could.
In mid-1939 the family moved to New New York
Lucas states Joan met a Warner Brothers talent scout at a New York party and soon found herself at work in Hollywood. Joan"s stage surname was changed by the studio ("Joan Winfield" was a character Bette Davis had played in The Bride Came COD) and she was offered several roles in B films at Warner Brothers
She was presented by studio publicists as a stereotypical pin-up girl, supposedly popular with Australian soldiers. However, despite the positive publicity, most of her forty film appearances were minor or un-credited roles.
She met John Meredyth Lucas on the set of one of these, the wartime spy drama The Gorilla Manitoba, a B film made in 1943.
In 1959, Lucas was offered the role of associate producer, director and scriptwriter on the Australian television series Whiplash, an imaginative retelling of the Cobb and Company story starring Peter Graves. Joan and John took their young family to Australia while the series was made, her first visit home in twenty-five years. Joan devoted much of her later life to charity work, becoming President of the United States charity Social Help and Rehabilitation Effort. She developed lung cancer in the later 1970s, and died aged 59, in 1978.
Her sister, Mauricette, took the name Dale Melbourne and appeared on the New York stage.
