Joan Taylor

Short Biography

Born Rose Marie Emma in Geneva, Illinois, both of Taylor's parents were show business veterans. Her Austrian mother Amelia Berky, was a song-and-dance vaudeville star in the 1920s. Her Sicilian father was a Hollywood prop man but later managed a movie theater after moving the family to Lake Forest, Illinois, where Taylor developed a love of the movies shown at her father's theater. After graduating from the Chicago National Association of Dancing Masters, Taylor moved to Hollywood in 1946 and began acting at the Pasadena Playhouse. Actor Victor Jory set up an interview for her with producer Nat Holt, which led to a movie career, beginning with the western Fighting Man of the Plains in 1949. It was also at the Pasadena Playhouse that she met her first husband Leonard Freeman while working on a production of Here Comes Mr. Jordan, and the couple were married in 1953. Taylor continued her film career throughout the 1950s, appearing mostly in westerns as well as two cult sci-fi classics--Earth vs. The Flying Saucers and 20 Million Miles to Earth. In 1958 she moved from feature films over to television, making guest appearances on programs such as Wagon Train, Yancy Derringer, and 21 Beacon Street until she was cast as Chuck Connors' romantic interest beginning in Season 3 of The Rifleman.Taylor made 18 appearances as general store proprietor Milly Scott over two seasons of The Rifleman in a role reminiscent of Miss Kitty on Gunsmoke or Lily Merrill on Lawman. After her contract expired, she made a single appearance on 77 Sunset Strip and then retired from acting. Her husband went on to create and produce the series Hawaii Five-O, and after his death from surgery complications in 1974, Taylor took over his production company for the remainder of the series' run. She also turned to writing screenplays, co-authoring the 1997 feature comedy Fools Rush In as well as TV movies and an episode of the series Family. In 1976 she remarried to TV director/producer Walter Grauman, who worked on The Untouchables, The Fugitive, Barnaby Jones, and Murder, She Wrote, but the couple divorced 4 years later. Taylor died of natural causes at the age of 82 on March 4, 2012 in Santa Monica, California.