In 1939, four-year old Jo Ann Marlow was discovered by a director from Warner Brothers Studios while on a family vacation to Hollywood. Star struck, her family relocated to Southern California and little Jo Ann made her motion picture debut in Yankee Doodle Dandy playing a younger version of Jeanne Cagney’s character “Josie.” She would go on to appear in over a dozen more films including 1946 Best Picture Mildred Pierce, the Cole Porter biopic Night and Day and the big screen adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage.
In the early 1950s, Jo Ann left her show business career for Loyola University and a law degree. After graduation, she soon became Chief Trial Lawyer for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. She had no desire to return to her life in Hollywood and she had no regrets.
In 1968, just after finalizing her divorce, Jo Ann was involved in a serious car accident that left her in a coma. She remained in a coma for the next 22 years until her death in January 1991 at the age of 56.