Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 1618. Photo: Paramount.
Joi Lansing (1929-1972) was a voluptuous, peroxide-blonde American model, actress, and nightclub singer. She was noted for her pin-up photos and roles in B-movies often cast in roles similar to those played by Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren. Remarkable was her prominent role in the opening tracking shot in Orson Welles' classic Touch of Evil (1958).
Joi Lansing was born Joy Rae Brown at Holy Cross Hospital, Salt Lake City, Utah in 1929 to Jack Glen Brown, a shoe salesman and orchestra musician, and Virginia Grace (née Shupe) Brown, a housewife. She would later be known by her stepfathers' surnames, i.e. Wassmansdorff and Loveland. In 1940, her family moved to Los Angeles, where her half-brother, Larry Vernon Loveland, was born the same year. She began modeling in her teens, and at age 14 was signed to a contract at MGM. She completed high school on the studio lot. A model and actress, she was frequently clad in skimpy costumes and bikinis that accentuated her figure (34D bust), but she never posed nude. Lansing practiced yoga for relaxation, and as a devout Mormon, she did not drink, smoke, or use drugs. Lansing's film career began with a bit part as a model in When a Girl's Beautiful (Frank McDonald, 1947), followed by another part as a model in The Counterfeiters (Sam Newfield, 1948). In the following years, she modeled and played bit roles in such famous musicals as Easter Parade (Charles Walters, 1948) starring Judy Garland and Fred Astaire, and Singin' in the Rain (Vinecente Minelli, 1952) with Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds. Denny Jackson at IMDb: "She was 20 years old. Her acting wasn't exactly polished in the beginning, but producers did not care - she was hired because of her looks and her body." She received top billing in Hot Cars (Don McDougall, 1956), a crime drama involving a stolen-car racket. In the famous opening sequence of Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958), she appeared as the dancer Zita. The girl dies at the end of the long tracking shot, during which her character exclaims to a border guard, "I keep hearing this ticking noise inside my head!" She had a brief role as an astronaut's girlfriend in the Science-Fiction classic Queen of Outer Space (Edward Bernds, 1958) that stars Zsa Zsa Gabor, and had fourth billing in another Sci-Fi story, The Atomic Submarine (Spencer Gordon Bennet, 1959).
Joi Lansing began appearing on television in 1955 when she played in an episode of Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok and one of I Love Lucy the following year. In the following years, she appeared in many series including Perry Mason (1957), Sugarfoot (1958), Mike Hammer (1958), Maverick (1958), and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1956-1963). She achieved some distinction for beating out Lois Lane (Noel Neill) to marry Superman (George Reeves) as in Superman's Wife, an episode of The Adventures of Superman (1958). Wikipedia: "What was possibly Lansing's best role may have been her least-seen as the leading lady in The Fountain of Youth, a Peabody Award-winning unsold television pilot directed by Orson Welles for Desilu in 1956 and broadcast on the Colgate Theatre two years later." She is also known as Shirley Swanson in The Bob Cummings Show (1956–1959). Lansing appeared in several episodes as a busty model who was the foil for photographer Bob Collins, Cummings' series name. Denny Jackson: "It was this series that proved to all that Joi could, indeed, act and act well. Because of this series, she began to get a few more substantial parts in films". On TV, she later got a recurring role as the wife of Lester Flatt in The Beverly Hillbillies (1965-1968). Denny Jackson: "As Gladys Flatt, her beauty even surpassed that of Elly May Clampett, played by Donna Douglas."
In the early 1960s, Joi Lansing starting singing in nightclubs. She performed with the Xavier Cugat orchestra and briefly toured with Les Paul, but little is known about the songs she recorded. Lansing starred in short film clips for the Scopitone video-jukebox system. Her songs included The Web of Love and The Silencer. Her film career was winding down. In 1964, her husband, producer Stanley Todd, discussed a film project with her, Project 22, with location shooting planned in Yugoslavia, and George Hamilton and Geraldine Chaplin named to the cast, but the film was never made. Lansing played Lola in the romantic comedy Marriage on the Rocks (Jack Donohue, 1965) with Frank Sinatra, Deborah Kerr, and Dean Martin. She previously had appeared in Sinatra's drama A Hole in the Head (Frank Capra, 1959), and in Martin's comedy Who Was That Lady? (George Sidney, 1960). She appeared opposite Basil Rathbone (in his last film appearance) and Lon Chaney Jr. in the musical horror comedy Hillbillys in a Haunted House (Jean Yarbrough, 1967). The film is a sequel to The Las Vegas Hillbillys (Arthur C. Pierce, 1966), with Joi Lansing replacing Mamie Van Doren in the role of Boots Malone. Her last film was the low-budget Science Fiction film Bigfoot (Robert F. Slatzer, 1970) with John Carradine. Joi Lansing died from breast cancer in 1972, at St. John's Hospital, Santa Monica, California. She had been treated surgically for the disease two years earlier. She also suffered from severe anemia. While some press accounts gave her age as 37, she was actually 43 years old. She was married to Jerome 'Jerry' Safron (1950; annulled), actor Lance Fuller (1951–1953; divorced) and producer Stan Todd (1960–1972; her death).
Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
