Joan Weldon(1930-2021)

A blue-eyed, chestnut-haired beauty, Joan Weldon trained to be a singer, and made her professional debut as a member of the San Francisco Opera Company. While appearing with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera Company, she came to the attention of Warner Brothers, who took her out of grand opera and put her in horse operas (The Command (1954), Riding Shotgun (1954)), a crime drama (The System (1953)) and, most famously, the biggest and best of the "Big Bug" movies, 1954's Them! (1954). Amidst her movie roles, all of them dramatic, non-singing parts, Weldon sang at the Hollywood Bowl, on her TV series This Is Your Music (1955) and on tour in "The Music Man" (on tour for three years as the repressed Marian the Librarian). She and her husband reside in Manhattan.