Joan Lowell

Joan Lowell (November 23, 1902-November 7, 1967) was a movie actress of the silent film era from Berkeley, California. Hermother was the daughter of a Massachusetts Lowell. Her father was theson of a landowner from Montenegro and a Turkish woman.

Childhood at sea

Helen Joan Lowell was reared at sea by her father, who was captain of a trade schooner. He took her aboard his ship at the age of three months when she was suffering from malnutrition. He nursed her back to health. She became skilled in the art of seamanship andonce harpooned a whale by herself. Once while cruising in her father's steamship, Lowell was offered a lotus flower coronet from theAtafu Islands. She declined to accept it.

Lowell feared her father, Captain Nicholas Wagner (Preacher Nick), had died on December 24, 1924. Newspapers reported his ship, the Oceanic Vance, sank off the coast of Mexico. Two weeks overdue in Los Angeles, California, the schooner was sighted in January 1925, fifteen miles (24 km) northwest of San Diego, California. The Oceanic Vance had lost her convoy, the schooner Westerner, on Christmas Eve, 1924.

Movie actress

She received her dramatic training from Gwendolen Logan Seiler. Lowell became an extra at Goldwyn Studios at the age of 17. She played bit parts in motion pictures as an extra. One of her first efforts was the role of "Madge Barlow" in the movie "Loving Lies" (1924).She was featured with Monte Blue in "Cap'n Dan" and in the Thompson Buchanan production of "The Cub".

After completing a leading part in "Branded A Thief" (1924), about
Mexican frontier life, Lowell was chosen as the queen of the Fourth of July, 1924, in Tijuana, Mexico. She was selected by Senor De Los Rios, a noted bullfighter from Spain.

Author and reporter

Lowell's book about growing up at sea, "Cradle of the Deep", became abestseller in nonfiction in 1929.

She married playwright Thompson Buchanan on October 16, 1927. The couple resided on a convert|170|acre|km2|sing=on farm three miles (5 km) from New Hope, Pennsylvania. They separated in October 1929. Lowell continued to live in the smaller of two old stone houses on the property. She named the home Joan's Ark. Lowell liked the country, her horses, and books, while Buchanan preferred city life.

Lowell became a newspaper reporter in Boston, Massachusetts in theearly 1930s. She was assaulted by booking agent Morris Levine. He was sentenced to fourteen months in the House of Correction in January 1932.Lowell worked for WOR (AM) radio station in New York City in 1934.

Joan Lowell died in Brasilia, Brazil in 1967. Photo Joan Lowell in Brasilia, 1966. [http://www.svpvril.com/Joan_Lowell.jpg]

References

*Los Angeles Times, "The Dizzy Whirl Of The Extra's Life", February 18, 1923, Page III29.
*Los Angeles Times, "Lobscouse Need Of Puny Infant", July 29, 1923, Page III31.
*Los Angeles Times, "Men, Women, and Things In The World's News", September 17, 1923, Page I8.
*Los Angeles Times, "To Entertain At Party Saturday", December 19, 1923, Page II11.
*Los Angeles Times, "Si Senor, El Toro Has Competition", July 4, 1924, Page A2.
*Los Angeles Times, "Actress' Father Is Lost At Sea", January 8, 1925, Page A9.
*Los Angeles Times, "Ship Oceanic Vance Safe", January 10, 1925, Page A6.
*Los Angeles Times, "Sailor Girl's Tale Spun", March 24, 1929, Page C11.
*Los Angeles Times, "New York's Best Sellers", April 14, 1929, Page 20.
*Los Angeles Times, "Joan Lowell's Dream Fades", November 10, 1929, Page 8.
*Los Angeles Times, "Lowell Attack Brings Sentence", January 27, 1932, Page 1.
*Los Angeles Times, "Short Talk", August 13, 1934, Page 5.