Joan Patricia SCOTT

SCOTT, Joan Patricia (nee LaCour) Aged 91, passed away on June 19, 2012, in Woodland Hills, California, after a lengthy illness. Born into an East Coast vaudeville family on May 21, 1921, Ms. Scott and her twin sister, Jean, as young girls appeared on stage as the "LaCour Sisters." In Hollywood in the late 1940s, Ms. Scott was active in the organizational struggles between several radio, film and television writers' unions which eventually merged to form the Writers' Guild of America, West. In 1955, she married screenwriter and Academy Award-nominated producer Adrian Scott, one of the "Hollywood Ten" who in 1947 had been sentenced to prison for their refusal to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and subsequently blacklisted by the film industry. Ms. Scott was also blacklisted, and in 1957 the couple moved to England, where Mr. Scott worked for the Rank film production organization. Upon their return to the United States in 1968, Ms. Scott initially "fronted" for her husband under the pseudonym Joanne Court. She then began to write scripts herself under that name and, once the blacklist ended, her own name. Her credits include episodes of "Have Gun, Will Travel," "Lassie," "Surfside 6," "Ripcord," "Pursuit," "The Adventures of McGraw," "The Waltons," and the two-part Disney production of "The Glorious Rebel," a fictionalized treatment of the life of Beethoven. Passionate in her determination that the injustices of the blacklist era not be forgotten, Ms. Scott in her later years became a significant resource for journalists, historians and filmmakers documenting that era. She is survived by her sister Jean LaCour, of Topanga, CA, and Joan and Adrian Scott's nephew, Doug Scott and his family in Ann Arbor, MI. No services are planned at this time. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations are suggested to the Motion Picture Home (Motion Picture & Television Fund, P.O. Box 51150, Los Angeles, CA 90051-9706).