- Born
- Died
- Birth nameBetty Graffina Leabo
- Nickname
- Graftina
- Height5′ 4″ (1.63 m)
- Best remembered as the second talking-era "Jane" (following Maureen O'Sullivan) of the durable Tarzan jungle film series and the only one in the sound era to play the role opposite two different Tarzans (Johnny Weissmuller and Lex Barker, lovely Brenda was born Betty Leabo in Missouri, raised in Los Angeles, and nicknamed "Graftina" by her father when she was a girl. Attending UCLA for four years, the lovely blonde became a photographers’ model to help pay her tuition. A 20th Century-Fox talent scout noticed a fashion layout of her and immediately signed her on.
The studio changed her name to "Brenda Joyce" after silent star Alice Joyce and immediately gave her an impressive movie debut with The Rains Came (1939) starring Tyrone Power and Myrna Loy in which she received fine reviews. Building her up to the public as a sexy single girl, she was subsequently showcased in Here I Am a Stranger (1939) opposite Richard Greene and partnered with John Payne in Maryland (1940).
The studio didn't take kindly to her impulsive 1941 marriage to army husband Owen Ward and supposedly punished her by relegating her to "B" films. Three children were the result of this first marriage -- Pam, Timothy and Beth. Brenda eventually lost interest in her career, but was coaxed back to the film set when brunette Maureen O'Sullivan left the Tarzan series and Johnny Weissmuller approved the athletic beauty as his new blonde swinging mate. Beginning a four-year excursion with the film Tarzan and the Amazons (1945), Brenda continued on as Jane after Weissmuller left (actor Lex Barker took over), but finally decided enough was enough. Brenda left after her fifth movie, Tarzan's Magic Fountain (1949), and just walked away -- never to return.
Following her movie career, Brenda moved to the Washington D.C. area and worked with the Refugee Services for nearly 10 years in which she helped displaced persons find employment and places to live. This line of work eventually had her relocate to the Carmel, California area and she worked with Catholic Resettlement in Seaside, California (near Monterey). Besieged by personal and health problems in later years, she endured a painful divorce from Ward in 1960 after 19 years of marriage. She was then married and divorced twice more. Suffering from dementia in her twilight years, she stayed with her children at various stages until she was forced to be institutionalized in a nursing home in Santa Monica, California. Brenda died there of complications from pneumonia on Independence Day in 2009.
- IMDb mini biography by: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
- SpousesLawrence Ralph Bemis(February 8, 1970 - November 1971) (divorced)Howard Mager(November 14, 1959 - 1970) (divorced)Owen Ward(January 18, 1941 - 1959) (divorced, 3 children)
- According to an in-depth article by David Ragan for Classic Images (June 2010), Gene Tierney was Brenda's closest Hollywood friend and her maid of honor when she married Owen Ward in 1941.
- Brenda was not proud of her work in the Tarzan features and lived in relative anonymity since she left Hollywood in 1949.
- Brenda was married three times. Her first husband, Owen Ward, was the father of her three children. The marriage lasted 19 years. Her second (to a naval officer named Bemis) and third (to a one-time Beverly Hills business manager of Elizabeth Taylor and Ginger Rogers named Howard Mager) were much shorter and also ended in divorce.
- Succeeded Maureen O'Sullivan as the character Jane in "Tarzan" productions towards the end of the 1940s.
- Took her stage name from silent screen vamp Alice Joyce.
- I didn't live near the studios in the hopes of "crashing" the gates. My ambition was to always be active in "little theater" and also to be a professor of Speech and Drama at U.C.L.A.
- I was never enamored of Hollywood and films. The only good friend I had at 20th Century-Fox was Gene Tierney. Also, the Publicity Department people became good friends.
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