European Film Star Postcards: Joan Caulfield

04 March 2025

Joan Caulfield

American actress Joan Caulfield (1922-1991) started as a fashion model. After being discovered by Broadway producers, she began a successful stage career in 1943. Paramount signed her and she starred in romantic comedies such as Dear Ruth (1947) and Film Noirs like The Unsuspected (1947). She was hailed in her time as one of the screen's great beauties, many of her cameramen said she was one of the few women in Hollywood whom it was virtually impossible to photograph badly.

Dutch or Belgian postcard, no. Ax 479. Photo: Columbia.

Dutch postcard by Foto archief Film en Toneel / Takken / 't Sticht, no. 3541. Photo: Universal.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 605.

Vintage postcard, no. 234. Photo: Universal.

Peaches and cream roles

Beatrice Joan Caulfield was born in 1922 in West Orange, New Jersey. She was one of three daughters to Henry R. Caulfield, an aircraft company administrator based in Manhattan. She attended Miss Beard's School in Orange, New Jersey. During her teenage years, the family moved to New York City, where she attended Columbia University in late 1940.

Her early forays into acting with the Morningside Players acting troupe did not appear to suggest any special talents in that direction, so she turned her ambitions towards a modelling career. Joan's exceptional looks and demure personality soon secured her top fashion shoots through the Harry Conover Agency, including a Life magazine cover in 1942. This caught the attention of renowned Broadway producer George Abbott who asked her to audition for a small part as Veronica, a dumb blonde in his upcoming production of 'Beat the Band'. While the musical was poorly received, critics singled out for praise of Joan's "decidedly winsome" looks and her budding comedic talent.

Abbott stuck with her and cast her as the female lead in his 1943 comedy 'Kiss and Tell', co-starring as her brother a young Richard Widmark. This time, Joan attracted rave reviews for her "natural and endearing" performance and was voted most promising actress in the New York Drama Critics annual poll. After fourteen months and 480 shows, Joan quit the cast of 'Kiss and Tell' in early 1944. She was replaced by her sister Betty Caulfield. The play went on for 962 performances, was filmed twice and turned into a TV and radio series as Meet Corliss Archer (1954). Though initially reluctant to forsake the stage for motion pictures, Joan Caulfield succumbed to an offer from Paramount in early 1944. Her contract even included a special clause permitting her to work on Broadway for six months each year.

Paramount put Caulfield in a lead role in her first film: Miss Susie Slagle's (John Berry, 1946) with Veronica Lake. During her tenure with the studio (1944-1950), she appeared in eleven films including a couple of loan-outs to Warner Brothers and Universal, respectively. As a leading lady, she was genteel, cultured and alluring, without exuding too much overt sex appeal. Often, she was merely decorative. As love interest to both Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby in Blue Skies (Stuart Heisler, Mark Sandrich, 1946), Bosley Crowther of the New York Times considered her "most lovely and passive".

Nevertheless, the picture was a huge hit and Joan found herself in number ten spot on Variety's list of 1946 top-grossing actresses, despite the inescapable fact, that, as a dancing partner to Astaire, she was barely adequate. In the course of her later films, it also transpired that she was not particularly convincing as a dramatic actress. Joan did, however, come into her own in breezy comedy roles such as a chambermaid in Monsieur Beaucaire (George Marshall, 1946) opposite Bob Hope. Crowther called her performance "delightfully nimble". The highlight of her Hollywood career was a starring role opposite William Holden in the wholesome family comedy Dear Ruth (William D. Russell, 1947). From the play by Norman Krasna allegedly based on the household of Groucho Marx, the picture was box office gold. Joan was to be typecast in peaches and cream roles thereafter.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W. 261. Photo: Paramount.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W. 481. Photo: Paramount.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 605.

Dutch postcard, no. a.x. 233. Photo: Columbia.

German cigarette card in the series 'Filmstars der Welt' by Greiling Sammelbilder, Series C, no. 135. Photo: Paramount.

Before 1952, I was just playing myself, and then I learned to be an actress

Joan Caulfield was loaned out to Warner Brothers for the mystery thriller Perfect Alibi (Michael Curtiz, 1947). I.S. Mowis at IMDb: "A victory of style over content, thanks mainly to taut direction by Michael Curtiz". Warner also cast her in the all-star musical jamboree Variety Girl (George Marshall, 1947), getting rather lost among the more extrovert performers. Her other loan-out was to Universal for Larceny (George Sherman, 1948), in which she played a naive widow, conned by a hustler (John Payne) out of a large sum of money for erecting a bogus monument to her late husband.

Dear Wife (Richard Haydn, 1949) was also a sequel to Dear Ruth, chiefly enjoyable for the histrionics of that excellent character actor, Edward Arnold. By this time, Joan had come to reject her wholesome image, referring to George Abbott who had once quipped that "she looked better on a tennis court than in bed". Increasingly dissatisfied with her assignments, Joan later claimed to have been poorly advised by drama coaches, agents and studio executives alike. She also blamed herself for some of her choices. Her contract was not renewed in 1949 and Joan freelanced from then on, but the choice of roles in films remained elusive.

The Petty Girl (Henry Levin, 1950), The Lady Says No (Frank Ross, 1951) and The Rains of Ranchipur (Jean Negulesco, 1955) were all decidedly trite, lacklustre affairs, later to be followed by a trio of dismal low-budget Westerns. Television anthologies offered her some relief from typecasting. Joan starred in her own NBC comedy series, Sally (1957). It was produced by her then-husband, Frank Ross, and boasted an impressive supporting cast, including Gale Gordon, Arte Johnson and Marion Lorne who received an Emmy nomination. As fortunes would have it, the series fared poorly in the ratings because of its unfortunate time slot which put it up against top-ranking shows like Maverick (1957) and Bachelor Father (1957).

She had the occasional role in a feature, such as Cattle King (Tay Garnett, 1963) with Robert Taylor, Red Tomahawk (R. G. Springsteen, 1967) and Buckskin (Michael D. Moore, 1967) with Barry Sullivan. Yet another setback to her career was the 1963 play 'She Didn't Say Yes' which folded before making it to Broadway. In the end, Joan Caulfield reinvented herself as a businesswoman with considerable financial acumen on the stock exchange, becoming vice president of Lustre Shine Co. Inc., a company which produced and installed self-polishing machines in airports and hotels. There were also two divorces and several lawsuits which kept her name in the public consciousness.

In 1971, she received some good notices for performing in Neil Simon's play 'Plaza Suite' at the Showboat Dinner Theatre in Florida. Joan made several more guest appearances on television, her last in an episode of Murder, She Wrote (1984). In 1971, she fittingly commented in The Evening Independent on her show business career: "Before 1952, I was just playing myself, then I learned to be an actress". Joan Caulfield was married twice. In 1950, she married director Frank Ross. They had a son, Caulfield Kevin Ross (1959), and divorced in 1960. That year, she married Dr. Robert Peterson. They had another son, John Caulfield Peterson (1962), and divorced in 1966. Joan Caulfield died in 1991, two weeks after cancer surgery in Los Angeles. Her ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean.