Dru, Joanne (1923 - 96)

Actress. All but her first three Westerns were little more than routine, but what a marvellous three those were. Joanne Dru was as pretty and spirited a Western heroine as one could wish, and in Red River she created a Hawksian woman as attuned to a man's world as Rosalind Russell or Jean Arthur had been before. After that, she was in the two most lyrical of John Ford's Westerns, a bright and comforting presence. Strangely, there was little else of note, but she had done enough.