Joy Page(1924-2008)
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Actress Joy (Ann) Page (born Joy Cerrette Paige in Los Angeles on November 9, 1924) received her exotic good looks from her father, actor Don Alvarado (real name Jose Paige), who played dashing Latin-lover types in silent films. Her mother was actress Ann Boyar (1908-1990). Following her parents' divorce, Joy's mother married Warner Bros. studio chief Jack L. Warner.
It was this Warner Bros. association that jump-started Joy's acting career, with a minor role in Casablanca (1942). She played Bulgarian newlywed Annina Brandel, whose virtue is on the line because, if her young husband (Helmut Dantine) keeps losing all their money at Rick's roulette table, it is clearly implied (but never overtly stated, owing to the censorship of the time) that the only way they will get out of Casablanca is if she sleeps with Capt. Renauld (Claude Rains). Despite the meager role, she made quite an impression and it is still considered her best performance of the handful of films in which she's appeared.
Being Warner's stepdaughter should have garnered her many more opportunities than it apparently did. In 1945, she married actor William T. Orr, whose own career was on the wane. Her father made him a producer almost overnight and later put him in charge of Warner Bros. Television. Film roles were few and far between after her auspicious debut and, other than Bullfighter and the Lady (1951) (with Robert Stack, in which she played a sultry vixen whom Stack tries to impress), the films were thoroughly routine. In 1959, she appeared in the first season of Walt Disney's "Swamp Fox" series, then retired.
She and Orr divorced in 1970. Their son, Gregory Orr, is a screenwriter and documentary producer. Joy died on April 18, 2008, of complications arising from a stroke and pneumonia.[3]
It was this Warner Bros. association that jump-started Joy's acting career, with a minor role in Casablanca (1942). She played Bulgarian newlywed Annina Brandel, whose virtue is on the line because, if her young husband (Helmut Dantine) keeps losing all their money at Rick's roulette table, it is clearly implied (but never overtly stated, owing to the censorship of the time) that the only way they will get out of Casablanca is if she sleeps with Capt. Renauld (Claude Rains). Despite the meager role, she made quite an impression and it is still considered her best performance of the handful of films in which she's appeared.
Being Warner's stepdaughter should have garnered her many more opportunities than it apparently did. In 1945, she married actor William T. Orr, whose own career was on the wane. Her father made him a producer almost overnight and later put him in charge of Warner Bros. Television. Film roles were few and far between after her auspicious debut and, other than Bullfighter and the Lady (1951) (with Robert Stack, in which she played a sultry vixen whom Stack tries to impress), the films were thoroughly routine. In 1959, she appeared in the first season of Walt Disney's "Swamp Fox" series, then retired.
She and Orr divorced in 1970. Their son, Gregory Orr, is a screenwriter and documentary producer. Joy died on April 18, 2008, of complications arising from a stroke and pneumonia.[3]
