Josephine "Joan" Davis (June 29, 1912 – May 23, 1961) was an American comedic actress whose career spanned vaudeville, film, radio, and television.

[2] Davis' first film was a short subject for Educational Pictures titled Way Up Thar (1935), featuring a then-unknown Roy Rogers.

[5] Columbia signed her to star in a pair of musical comedies with Jane Frazee,[6] and she returned to RKO opposite Jack Haley in 1945 and Cantor in 1948.

[8] Sponsored by Lever Brothers on behalf of Swan Soap, the premise had Davis running a tea shop in the little community of Smallville.

The tea shop setting continued in Joan Davis Time, a CBS Saturday-night series from October 11, 1947, to July 3, 1948.

With Lionel Stander as the tea shop manager, the cast included Hans Conried, Mary Jane Croft, Andy Russell, the Choraliers quintet, and John Rarig and his Orchestra.

Leave It to Joan ran from July 4 to August 22, 1949, as a summer replacement for Lux Radio Theater and continued from September 9, 1949, to March 3, 1950.

[3] I Married Joan premiered in 1952, casting Davis as the manic wife of a mild-mannered community judge (Jim Backus), who got her husband into wacky jams with or without the help of a younger sister, played by her real-life daughter Beverly Wills.

In the pilot, Joan was introduced to her five-year-old grandson for the first time and was trying to convince Beverly, despite her hectic show-business schedule and her somewhat zany personality, that she was a loving and responsible grandmother.