Joan O’Brien was a singer, movie and TV actor in the 1950s-60s who sang with Harry James and Bob Crosby and co-starred with Elvis Presley and Cary Grant. She’s your Phantom Dancer feature artist this week.

The Phantom Dancer is your weekly non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio and TV every week.

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SINGER

Joan Marie O’Brien became a professional singer while still in high school on the Los Angeles country TV show, Hometown Jamboree, in 1951.

In 1954, she became a regular on The Bob Crosby Show and stayed until shortly before the show’s cancellation in 1958.

Lawrence Welk hired O’Brien as a one-week replacement for his champagne music singer Alice Lon in July 1959. O’Brien had come to Welk’s attention years earlier as a singer on Bob Crosby’s show.

In 1960, she sang as soloist for composer Buddy Bregman at the Moulin Rouge night club in Los Angeles.

O’Brien sang with the Harry James band in 1968.

ACTOR

Joanie O’Brien co-starred with Cary Grant and Tony Curtis in the 1959 film Operation Petticoat.

O’Brien acted in several episodes on the TV western Bat Masterson. The episode S2E01 “To the Manner Born” (1959) had her singing as up-and-coming opera soprano, Dora Miller.

O’Brien was cast as survivor Susanna Dickinson in John Wayne’s 1960 epic feature film retelling of battle of The Alamo.

In 1961 O’Brien again co-starred with John Wayne as his love interest in The Comancheros.

She played Elvis Presley’s girlfriend in the 1963 film It Happened at the World’s Fair.

Her most frequent acting performances were in television during the 1960s. She made two guest appearances on Perry Mason. In 1960 she played Betty Roberts in “The Case of the Singing Skirt”, and in 1965 she played Jill Fenwick in “The Case of the Lover’s Gamble”.

In 1964 O’Brien guest starred in an episode of The Man From UNCLE. Series star Robert Vaughn subsequently cast her as Ophelia in Hamlet at the Pasadena Playhouse.

After retiring in 1969 due to a stormy personal life, she settled down and successfully raised two children while running a management firm for the Hilton Hotel chain.