Joan Darling

Joan Darling (née Kugell;[1] born April 14, 1935[2]) is an American actress, film and television director and a dramatic arts instructor.

Born Joan Kugell in Newton, Massachusetts and raised in neighboring Brookline, she is the oldest of four children born to Helen Kerner and attorney Simon Harris Kugell, who started the Boston University Law Review.

[7] From 1955 through at least 1958, Kugell performed with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, gaining favor with both audience and critics for the quality and versatility of her work.

She appeared in fellow "Premise" player Theodore J. Flicker's The Troublemaker (1964)—her feature film debut—and later his The President's Analyst (1967).

[19] In December 1987, an inside joke/homage to the then-52-year-old actress/director's career was evidently being made when the character portrayed by Darling in the "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" episode of Jake and the Fatman (that of "an assistant DA [who] has trouble convincing ['Fatman' McCabe] she's stumbled onto a possible homicide case"),[20] was assigned Darling's own birth name, Joan Kugell.

At the time, she was part of a small circle of women directors to direct a major Hollywood studio feature film.