Joan Tompkins

Joan Tompkins, Mrs. Joan Swenson (July 9, 1915 – January 29, 2005) was an American actress of television, film, radio, and stage, who co-founded with her husband, Karl Swenson, an acting company in Beverly Hills, California. 2Early years Tompkins was born in New York. She was the daughter of Florence Aiken. She began acting in stock theater immediately after she finished high school.According to the Social Security Death Index, Tompkins, listed as Joan Swenson at death, was living in New York when she procured her Social Security number, probably in the late 1930s.Tompkins was discovered by actress June Walker, who said, "She has the finest diction of any young actress I've heard in years." 2Stage In 1938, at the age of 23, Tompkins joined Henry Fonda in performing plays in White Plains, New York. She appeared on Broadway in New York City in stage productions of Fly Away Home (1935), (her first Broadway appearance) Pride and Prejudice (1935), The Golden Journey (1936) and My Sister Eileen (1940). 2Radio Tompkins performed on radio in the soap opera role of Nora Drake on This Is Nora Drake, which ran on CBS radio until 1959. Her other roles on radio programs included those shown in the table below. 2Film roles Tompkins's film roles included that of Aunt Thora from Denmark in The Christine Jorgensen Story (1970), who gives the world's first transsexual, George Jorgensen, the name "Christine", after her deceased daughter and George's cousin.She appeared as Miss Musto in the comedy film Popi, starring Alan Arkin and Rita Moreno. In the story line, Popi, a poor Puerto Rican widower living in Harlem, New York, hatches a bizarre plot to get his two sons, who will claim to be Cuban shipwrecked off the Florida coast so that they will be adopted by wealthy parents who learn of their plight from the expected press coverage.Tompkins appeared as Judge Beth Weaver in Zigzag, an American film based on the British picture False Witnes