Joan Staley

Acting

Joan Staley

Born 1940-05-20 · Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Lovely Joan Staley was born Joan McConchie on May 20, 1940 in Minneapolis, Minnesota and started taking violin lessons by the time she was three years old. Living in Los Angeles, her prodigious talent was obvious. She soon joined a baby orchestra in Los Angeles and, within a few years, became a Junior Symphony performer at age six. She also made her unbilled specialty debut on film as a child violinist in The Emperor Waltz (1948), starring Bing Crosby and Joan Fontaine. Her father's business had the family traveling throughout Europe growing up but she later relocated to California and briefly enrolled at Chapman College in the Los Angeles area. Becoming a stunning, statuesque beauty, she re-directed herself back to a career in show business, singing backup on records for Sam Phillips and working as a secretary to make ends meet while appearing in local L.A. stage productions. In 1958, she was approached by a photographer and eventually posed for Playboy magazine, becoming November's centerfold. The attention warranted her an MGM contract and cheesecake bit parts came her way with such movies as Ocean's Eleven (1960) and Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961). She appeared front-and-center à la Raquel Welch as a scantily-clad prehistoric turn-on in Valley of the Dragons (1961), but nothing much came of it. Following her perky love interests in the mediocre western Gunpoint (1966), starring Audie Murphy, and The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), a Don Knotts comedy film, and guest appearances on such TV shows as "Rango," "Pistols and Petticoats, "Mission: Impossible," "Ironside" and "Adam-12," Joan's career went on hiatus after a horse-riding accident. Briefly married to Chuck Staley, her second husband is former Universal exec Dale Sheets. Twins were born to them, a boy and girl, on March 24, 1971. Since then, with the exception of a brief appearance on an episode of "Dallas" in 1982, Joan remained with family life and other outside pursuits. She died on November 24, 2019. - IMDb mini biography by: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

Acting credits

Breakfast at Tiffany's poster
7.6

Holly Golightly is an eccentric New York City playgirl determined to marry a Brazilian millionaire. But when young writer Paul Varjak moves into her apartment building, her past threatens to get in their way.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

1961

Ocean's Eleven poster
6.4

Danny Ocean and his gang attempt to rob the five biggest casinos in Las Vegas in one night.

Ocean's Eleven

1960

Cape Fear poster
7.5

Sam Bowden witnesses a rape committed by Max Cady and testifies against him. When released after 8 years in prison, Cady begins stalking Bowden and his family but is always clever enough not to violate the law.

Cape Fear

1962

Johnny Cool poster
5.3

A deported gangster trains an Italian convict to take over his operations in the U.S.

Johnny Cool

1963

Gunpoint poster
6.2

A young, determined sheriff and his posse chase a gang of murderous train robbers, and a kidnapped woman into New Mexico.

Gunpoint

1966

Kissin' Cousins poster
4.7

Army officer Josh Morgan returns to the Smoky Mountains and tries to convince his kinfolk to allow a missile site to be built on their land. Once he arrives, he discovers he has a lookalike cousin.

Kissin' Cousins

1964

Roustabout poster
6.0

After losing his job at a coffee shop, Charlie Rogers finds employment at a struggling carnival, but his attempted romance with a teenager leads to friction with her father.

Roustabout

1964

The Ladies Man poster
6.3

After his girl leaves him for someone else, Herbert gets really depressed and starts searching for a job. He finally finds one in a big house which is inhabited by many, many women. Can he live in the same home with all these females?

The Ladies Man

1961

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken poster
6.7

Luther Heggs, a typesetter for the town newspaper, pitches an idea for a story about a local haunted house where a famous murder/suicide occurred 20 years earlier. After the editor assigns Luther to spend one night alone in the mansion, Heggs has a number of supernatural encounters and writes a front page story that makes him a hometown hero...until the nephew of the deceased sues him for libel.

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken

1966

A New Kind of Love poster
6.2

A down-and-out reporter and a fashion designer fall in love in Paris.

A New Kind of Love

1963

Mission: Impossible vs. the Mob poster
9.7

Jim Phelps leads the IMF on an assignment to destroy a criminal empire headed by Frank Wayne.

Mission: Impossible vs. the Mob

1969

Who Killed Julie Greer? poster
NR

Amos Burke is an L.A. cop who's inherited millions and usually arrives at crime scenes in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce. Investigating the death of actress Julie Greer, he finds lots of suspects - but the killer's identity surprises him.

Who Killed Julie Greer?

1961

Gun Fight poster
5.3

Action Western directed by Edward L. Cahn . After courageously protecting a pretty dance hall girl (Joan Staley) from peril, former cavalry soldier Wayne (James Brown) refuses to join his brother Brad's (Gregg Palmer) unlawful cattle rustling gang, which leads to heated disagreements, bitter betrayals and life-threatening danger.

Gun Fight

1961

Kisses for My President poster
7.6

A hapless husband takes a back seat to his wife, the first female president of the United States.

Kisses for My President

1964

Valley of the Dragons poster
5.6

In 1881 Algeria, an American soldier and a French aristocrat are about to have a duel over a woman when a comet hurtling past the Earth draws them into its gravitational pull. The men find themselves transported to the moon, where they discover a prehistoric civilization inhabited by reptiles and humans.

Valley of the Dragons

1961

Dondi poster
4.1

World War II GIs adopt an Italian war orphan.

Dondi

1961

A Golightly Gathering poster
NR

A Golightly Gathering reunites the players of the cocktail party sequence of Breakfast at Tiffany's It features the surviving actors that appeared in the cocktail party sequence of that iconic movie while having their like-minded reunion some 48 years later.

A Golightly Gathering

2009