Biographie

Was the second wife of choreographer and director Bob Fosse. She and Fosse divorced after he left her for Gwen Verdon. Joan became very sick near the end of their marriage due to complications from diabetes, and died of a heart attack at the age of 43.

In the film Que le spectacle commence... (1979) starring Roy Scheider, the angel character played by Jessica Lange is dressed in a similar way to Joan in her final performance in the off-Broadway play "The Infernal Machine" (1958). It seems Fosse was deeply disturbed by Joan's early death, a sorrow that lasted throughout the rest of his life according to his subsequent wife Gwen Verdon.

She was a student of George Balanchine in the first year of the School of American Ballet (SAB).

Joan suffered from a heart condition for seven years, complicated by type I diabetes, before her death in 1961, She was 43 even though the New York Times reported her age as 38. Joan had shaved five years off her age long ago for career purposes..

Married to dancer Bob Fosse, her second husband, it was Joan who encouraged him to rise above his nightclub existence and become a choreographer.