European Film Star Postcards: Joanne Dru

04 January 2026

Joanne Dru

American actress Joanne Dru (1922-1996) became a star with her roles in the classic Westerns Red River (1948) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949).

Belgian postcard by Fotoprim, Brussels, no. 39. Photo: United Artists. Joanne Dru in Red River (Howard Hawks, 1948).

Joanne Dru in She Wore A Yellow Ribbon (1949)

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. W. 834. Photo: R.K.O. Radio. Joanne Dru in She Wore A Yellow Ribbon (John Ford, 1949).

Tony Curtis and Joanne Dru in Forbidden (1953)

Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano. Photo: Universal International. Tony Curtis and Joanne Dru in Forbidden (Rudolph Maté, 1953).

A debut that almost ended her career

Joanne Dru was born Joanne Letitia LaCock in 1922 in Logan, West Virginia, USA. She was the daughter of Ralph Henry LaCock, a West Virginia druggist, and Imogene M. 'Jeanne' Frampton LaCock Macaro. Her younger brother was Peter Marshall, who became an actor and singer best known as the original host of the American game show Hollywood Squares.

In 1940, the 18-year-old Dru went to New York with her mother after her father's death. There she worked as a model with the Powers agency and was cast by Al Jolson as one of the showgirls in his last Broadway show, 'Hold Onto Your Hats'. During this time, she met and fell in love with the popular singer Dick Haymes while performing together at the Paramount Theatre in New York. She had been dancing there with the Samba Sirens in Harry James' supporting programme. When the show closed in 1941, she married popular singer Dick Haymes and went with him to Hollywood.

Discovered by a talent scout while working in the theatre, Joanne made her screen debut in Abie's Rose Marie (A. Edward Sutherland, 1946), a comedy, based on a 1920s Broadway play, about a cultural clash when a Jewish boy (Richard Norris) wants to marry an Irish girl (Dru). The film almost ended her career when it received criticism for stereotyping, and additional cuts were made after complaints. Johnn Howard Reid at IMDb: "The plot developments are as corny, predictable and as heavily relying on coincidences as the characters are uniformly pasteboard stereotypes. Even their religious attitudes are farcically simplistic."

Two years later, she 'redeemed' herself with her role in the classic Howard Hawks Western Red River (1948), opposite John Wayne, Montgomery Clift and John Ireland. The film gives a fictional account of the first cattle drive from Texas to Kansas along the Chisholm Trail. The dramatic tension stems from a growing feud over the management of the drive between the Texas rancher who initiated it (Wayne) and his adopted adult son (Clift). Upon its release, Red River was both a critical and commercial success and was nominated for two Academy Awards.

Joanne Dru followed that with another now classic Western, John Ford's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), again playing opposite John Wayne. With a budget of $1.6 million, the film was one of the most expensive Westerns made up to that time. A major hit for RKO, it received its name from 'She Wore a Yellow Ribbon', a song popular with the U.S. military. The film was shot in Technicolour on location in Monument Valley, utilising large areas of the Navajo reservation along the Arizona-Utah state border. Ford and cinematographer Winton C. Hoch based much of the film's imagery on the paintings of Frederic Remington. Hoch won the Best Cinematography Award (Colour) at the 22nd Academy Awards.

German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 717. Photo: Universal International Film. Joanne Dru in Thunder Bay (Anthony Mann, 1953).

American Arcade card.

Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 1367. Photo: Dear Film.

Typed to the Western

Unfortunately, Joanne Dru's success in those two classics resulted in the scripts being submitted to her consisting mostly of Westerns. In 1950, she was cast in another John Ford Western, Wagon Master (1950), which became the basis for the Ward Bond TV series Wagon Train (1957).

Even though she played in films other genres such as Oscar winner All the King's Men (Robert Rossen, 1949) starring Broderick Crawford, the sports drama The Pride of St. Louis (Harmon Jones, 1952), and the Film Noir Hell on Frisco Bay (Frank Tuttle, 1955) starring Alan Ladd, it were the Westerns for which she was remembered. In an interview with Hedda Hopper in 1957, she said about her attitude toward Westerns: "Once you're typed, you're lost".

By the late 1950s, Westerns were running out of steam, and so was her screen career. She turned to TV, where she appeared on shows such as Playhouse 90 (1956). In 1960, Joanne was cast in the role of the Eastern owner of a dude ranch in the comedy series Guestward Ho! (1960). The show ended in 1961.

She appeared sporadically on screen for the rest of the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s, with one feature film appearance, in the drama Sylvia (Gordon Douglas, 1965) starring George Maharis, Carroll Baker, and Peter Lawford. Her final film was the Italian superhero comedy Poliziotto superpiù / Super Snooper (Sergio Corbucci, 1980), starring Terence Hill and Ernest Borgnine. For her contribution to the television industry, Dru was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Joanne Dru died in Los Angeles, California, in 1996, aged 74, from a respiratory ailment that developed from lymphedema, which was most likely the after-effects of cancer treatment. Her ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean. Dru was married four times. She was married to Dick Haymes from 1941 to 1949. They had three children. Divorced from Haymes in 1949, Dru married Red River and All the King's Men co-star John Ireland less than a month later. Her marriage to Ireland broke down due to his affair with Queen Bee (1955) co-star Joan Crawford. Her other husbands were George Rodgers Pierose and businessman C.V. Wood. Her last husband and one of her daughters had died three years earlier.