JOAN McCALL

She was beautiful, highly intelligent, a Broadway starring actress and prolific Hollywood writer, loaded with love, passionately spiritual, very patient, was helpful and inspiring to many people, a gourmet cook, a cat lover, often very funny, did a full-body workout every day, was a plant-based vegan, and a crossword puzzle whiz.
Joan McCall was born in rural Grahn, Kentucky as Joan Carole Blevins, daughter of Margaret and Johnny Blevins. She graduated from Berea College in Berea, Kentucky with a B.A. in art and theater. She was trained as an actress in New York, by acting as an apprentice in summer stock at Gateway Playhouse in Bellport, Long Island where she met her future husband David Sheldon who was the producer-director. She was trained further by Lee Strasberg in New York, and in Los Angeles by Charles Conrad.
Fulfilling her dreams, she was immediately hired to star on Broadway in "A Race of Hairy Men" written by Evan Hunter, followed by starring in Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park" directed by Mike Nichols, and "Star-Spangled Girl" also written by Neil Simon. She starred in the national tours of both productions as well as in Woody Allen's "Don't Drink the Water."
Moving to Hollywood, she starred in her first movie "Devil Times Five," appeared in the movies "Act of Vengeance" and "Project: Kill," and starred in the blockbuster "Grizzly." She co-authored with David Sheldon the sequel to "Grizzly" with George Clooney, Laura Dern, Deborah Raffin, Louise Fletcher, John Rhys Davies, Steve Inwood, Deborah Foreman, and Charlie Sheen.
Switching to writing, she wrote a screenplay about race car driver Shirley Muldowney called "Shirley" produced as "Heart Like a Wheel" and wrote over 250 scripts for film and television under the name Joan Pommer as well as Joan McCall including ,"Days of Our Lives", "Santa Barbara,' "Capitol," "Search for Tomorrow," "Another World," and "Divorce Court. " On radio, she performed as a regular on Sears Radio Theater for CBS along with many guest stars. She co-authored with Sheldon the bestseller "When I Knew Al: The Untold Story of Al Pacino and Ed DeLeo."
Her next of kin are sisters Jewel Flaugher and Clara Lee Beltzner, and surviving husband's next of kin Holly Harris, Paul Allan, and Laurel Durenberger.