- Born
- Died
- Birth nameRose Marie Emma
- Nickname
- Rose Freeman
- Height5′ 6½″ (1.69 m)
- Joan Taylor's mother, Amelia Berky, was a vaudeville singing-dancing star in the 1920s. Her father was a prop man in Hollywood during that same period, but, after Joan's birth, the family moved to Lake Forest, Illinois, where her father managed a movie theater. She developed a love of movies from watching so many at her father's theater, and she graduated from the Chicago National Association of Dancing Masters. Heading to Hollywood in 1946, she enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse. Victor Jory arranged an interview for her with producer Nat Holt, and she made her film debut in the Randolph Scott western Fighting Man of the Plains (1949). She appeared in quite a few films over the next several years, many of them westerns. She also made many appearances on TV series, and had a recurring role in The Rifleman (1958), but it's for two sci-fi films that she is fondly remembered by 1950s movie audiences: Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) and 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957). After her two-year stint on "The Rifleman", however, she decided to retire from films, and did so in 1963.- IMDb Mini Biography By: frankfob2@yahoo.com
- SpousesWalter Grauman(June 18, 1976 - October 17, 1980) (divorced)Leonard Freeman(July 2, 1950 - January 20, 1974) (his death, 3 children)
- ParentsJoseph Emma TaylorAmelia Berky Taylor
- Had a recurring role as an intriguing, subtle love interest for Chuck Connors in The Rifleman (1958) series. She was replaced by Patricia Blair (later of Daniel Boone (1964) TV fame) when Joan's husband, producer/director Leonard Freeman, relocated the family to Hawaii where he was producing the Hawaii Five-O (1968) series. She abruptly retired in December of 1963 to raise her daughter.
- After her death on March 4, 2012, she was honored, as Rose Freeman (her married name), with the dedication "In Loving Memory of Rose Freeman" on the March 19, 2012 episode of Hawaii Five-0 (2010); her late husband, Leonard Freeman, was the creator and executive producer of the original Hawaii Five-O (1968).
- Entertained in USO tour of military hospitals during WWII.
- Came out of retirement for a time to write for film and TV in the late '80s/early '90s. Also made cameos as an actress.
- Her father, Joseph Emma was from Sicily. He became a movie theater manager and a Hollywood prop man. Her mother, Amelia Berky was from Austria and was a vaudeville dancer/singer.
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