Joan Blackman obit

Joan Blackman, Elvis’ Love Interest in ‘Blue Hawaii’ and ‘Kid Galahad,’ Dies at 87

She also appeared (separately) with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in ‘Career’ and ‘Visit to a Small Planet’ and on TV’s ‘Peyton Place.’ 

She was not on the list.

Joan Blackman, who played women that Elvis Presley ultimately could not resist in Blue Hawaii and Kid Galahad, has died. She was 87.

Blackman died March 16 at a hospital in Santa Rosa, California, her son, Ngai Tarkington, told The Hollywood Reporter. She was a longtime resident of nearby Calistoga.

The San Francisco native also portrayed the first wife of a struggling actor (Anthony Franciosa) in the Hall Wallis-produced, Dean Martin-starring Career (1959) and recurred on the ABC primetime soap Peyton Place during its second season (1965-66) as Marion Fowler, wife of district attorney John Fowler (John Kerr).

The raven-haired Blackman had appeared as a member of a family visited by a goofy alien played by Jerry Lewis in Visit to a Small Planet (1960), directed by Norman Taurog. She then reunited with Wallis and Taurog as the tour guide Maile Duval in Blue Hawaii (1961), the first of three Presley films to shoot in the 50th state. (Maile and Elvis’ Chad Gates marry at the end of the movie.)

That same year, she began filming on Kid Galahad (1962) in which she portrayed Rose Grogan, the younger sister of Gig Young’s character, the owner of a boxing camp. She got her man Elvis, who plays mechanic turned boxer Walter Gulick, in that picture as well.

An only child, Joan May Blackman was born in San Francisco on May 17, 1938. Her father, Frank, was a musician, and her mother, Ivy, a homemaker. She took singing and dancing lessons and as a youngster performed on television, at military camps and hospitals and with Ernie Heckscher’s big band at the Fairmont Hotel.

After graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School in 1956, she came to Los Angeles that December and rented a room at the Hollywood Studio Club, where Barbara Eden also was staying at the time.

She wound up inking a contract with Hecht-Hill-Lancaster (she was the Burt Lancaster-led production company’s fourth-ever signing) and made her big-screen debut in Good Day for a Hanging (1959), starring Fred MacMurray.

She said she read twice for the role of Maria in West Side Story (1961) and “really thought I was going to get it,” she told FilmFan magazine last year. (Natalie Wood, of course, was hired.)

Her résumé included the films The Great Impostor (1961), the Richard Chamberlain-starring Twilight of Honor (1963), Intimacy (1966), Daring Game (1968), Pets (1974), Macon County Line (1974) and Moonrunners (1975) and TV appearances on Perry Mason, Bonanza, I Spy, Gunsmoke and Run for Your Life.

Blackman was married to actors Joby Baker (Good Morning World) from 1959 until their 1961 divorce and to Rockne Tarkington (Black Samson) from 1968 until their 1970 divorce. She spent her years away from Hollywood gardening and singing in local spots around town, her son said.

Her other son, Rockne Tarkington Jr., died in 2019.

Actress

Moonrunners (1975)

Moonrunners

6.0

Reba Rainey

1975

 

Jesse Vint, Alan Vint, and Cheryl Waters in Macon County Line (1974)

Macon County Line

6.5

Carol Morgan

1974

 

Doc Elliot (1973)

Doc Elliot

6.2

TV Series

Jan McGuire

1974

1 episode

 

Teri Guzman and Candice Rialson in Pets (1973)

Pets

5.5

Geraldine Mills

1973

 

Circle of Fear (1972)

Circle of Fear

7.6

TV Series

Ellen Parrish

1973

1 episode

 

Daring Game (1968)

Daring Game

5.9

Kathryn Carlyle

1968

 

The Destructors (1967)

The Destructors

4.0

Stassa

1967

 

Ben Gazzara in Run for Your Life (1965)

Run for Your Life

7.6

TV Series

Janet Ford

1967

1 episode

 

Intimacy (1966)

Intimacy

5.7

Barbara Nicholson

1966

 

Peyton Place (1964)

Peyton Place

7.4

TV Series

Marian Fowler

1965–1966

16 episodes

 

Gunsmoke (1955)

Gunsmoke

8.1

TV Series

Phyllis Bowmen

1966

1 episode

 

Bill Cosby and Robert Culp in I Spy (1965)

I Spy

7.2

TV Series

Donna Shepard

1966

1 episode

 

Kraft Suspense Theatre (1963)

Kraft Suspense Theatre

7.7

TV Series

Lucille Burnside

1965

1 episode

 

Bonanza (1959)

Bonanza

7.3

TV Series

Clara Dorn

1965

1 episode

 

Raymond Burr in Perry Mason (1957)

Perry Mason

8.3

TV Series

Hilary Gray

1964

1 episode

 

Richard Crenna and Maxine Stuart in Slattery's People (1964)

Slattery's People

8.0

TV Series

Pat Allison

1964

1 episode

 

Richard Chamberlain in Twilight of Honor (1963)

Twilight of Honor

6.3

Susan Harper

1963

 

The Dick Powell Theatre (1961)

The Dick Powell Theatre

7.4

TV Series

Nancy Miller

1963

1 episode

 

Elvis Presley, Lola Albright, and Joan Blackman in Kid Galahad (1962)

Kid Galahad

6.1

Rose Grogan

1962

 

Elvis Presley, Pamela Austin, Joan Blackman, Jenny Maxwell, Darlene Tompkins, and Nancy Walters in Blue Hawaii (1961)

Blue Hawaii

6.1

Maile Duval

1961

 

Tony Curtis and Sue Ane Langdon in The Great Impostor (1960)

The Great Impostor

6.9

Lt. Catherine Lacey

1960

 

Shoestring Theatre

TV Series

1959–1960

4 episodes

 

Jerry Lewis in Visit to a Small Planet (1960)

Visit to a Small Planet

5.9

Ellen Spelding

1960

 

Career (1959)

Career

6.8

Barbara Lawson Helmsley

1959

 

Robert Vaughn, Joan Blackman, and Fred MacMurray in Good Day for a Hanging (1959)

Good Day for a Hanging

6.3

Laurie Cutler

1959

 

William Shatner and Basil Rathbone in Encounter (1952)

Encounter

6.9

TV Series

LindaJoanMaria

1954–1958

8 episodes

 

A Midsummer Theatre

TV Mini Series

1958

1 episode

 

Alcoa Theatre (1957)

Alcoa Theatre

7.4

TV Series

Betsy Rawlings

1958

1 episode

 

Goodyear Theatre (1957)

Goodyear Theatre

7.1

TV Series

Betsy Rawlings

1958

1 episode

 

On Camera

6.0

TV Series

JanieKatySchoolgirl

1954–1958

5 episodes

 

Anne Fielding in Folio (1955)

Folio

6.1

TV Series

1958

1 episode

 

First Performance

6.7

TV Series

1957

1 episode

 

Dorchester Theatre

TV Mini Series

JennyHildegarde

1957

2 episodes

 

Lon Chaney Jr. and John Hart in Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans (1957)

Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans

7.3

TV Series

MaraWillow Whist

1957

2 episodes

 

Playbill (1953)

Playbill

5.1

TV Series

1954–1955

3 episodes

 

Soundtrack

Elvis Presley, Pamela Austin, Joan Blackman, Jenny Maxwell, Darlene Tompkins, and Nancy Walters in Blue Hawaii (1961)

Blue Hawaii

6.1

performer: "Almost Always True"

1961

 

Self

Here's Hollywood (1960)

Here's Hollywood

8.4

TV Series

Self - Guest

1962

1 episode

 

Archive Footage

Cane Fire (2020)

Cane Fire

7.2

Self - Maile Duval in Blue Hawaii (archive footage)

2020

 

There's Only One Elvis (2002)

There's Only One Elvis

8.7

TV Movie

Self - Maile Duval (archive footage)

2002

 

Biography (1987)

Biography

7.7

TV Series

Barbara Lawson Helmsley (clip from Career (1959)) (archive footage, uncredited)

2002

1 episode

 

Presley

TV Mini Series

Self - Maile Duval (archive footage)

1987

1 episode