Most people would not recognize her name immediately. But chances are they have seen her work.
Joanna Miles, 86, was spotted out in Los Angeles this week looking sharp and completely unbothered by the Southern California summer heat. For anyone who grew up watching classic Hollywood, her face is a familiar one — even if her name never quite reached the level of fame her talent deserved.
Her breakthrough came in 1973 when she was cast as Laura Wingfield in a TV movie adaptation of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, starring opposite the legendary Katharine Hepburn. The performance earned her two Emmy Awards and cemented her place in television history as one of the finest dramatic actresses of her generation.
Her career from there was wide and varied in the best possible way. She shared the screen with Sylvester Stallone, Tom Selleck, Gary Oldman, and Macaulay Culkin across projects that spanned decades and genres. Star Trek fans will know her as Perrin, Spock's stepmother, in The Next Generation.
Her story off screen is equally remarkable. Born in Nice, France in 1940 to two painters, she was just two months old when the Nazis invaded. Her mother's American citizenship became the family's escape route — they were reportedly the last Americans out of France and made headlines in the New York Times for it.
She went on to study acting in New York in the 1960s at the Actors Studio alongside classmates named Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, and Robert De Niro.
At 86, she is still out and about in Los Angeles. Still standing.