Her English daughter-in-law was Samantha Juste, co-host of BBC television's Top of the Pops in its early days.
[1] She won the drama award at the University of Texas at Austin and performed on a local radio show called Janelle Sings.
[2] Her films included David O. Selznick's Academy Award-winning Since You Went Away (1944), with Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Robert Walker and Shirley Temple, and The Brute Man (1946), directed by Jean Yarbrough, with Rondo Hatton and Jane "Poni" Adams.
Johnson met her Trieste-born Slovene husband, George Dolenz, while performing in a stage play called Return Engagement, but largely gave up acting after their marriage.
[citation needed] Johnson died of cancer in Los Gatos, California, on her 72nd birthday.