Biography
Former model Joan Hackett diligently studied acting under
Lee Strasberg; proof that her diligence paid off was her critically acclaimed performance in the 1961 Broadway production
Call Me By My Rightful Name. A versatile actress who successfully combined brains with beauty (not always the case with ingenues of the 1960s), Hackett made her film debut in 1966's
The Group. Perhaps her best film performance was as the lonely frontier wife who is briefly attracted to drifter
Charlton Heston in
Will Penny (1968). Hackett's TV work included recurring roles on the dramatic weekly
The Defenders in the early 1960s and the situation comedy
Another Day in 1978. Ravaged by cancer in her last months, Hackett could take some small comfort in the knowledge that her penultimate movie appearance in
Only When I Laugh (1981) had won her a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination. Joan Hackett was at one time the wife of actor
Richard Mulligan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide