Joanna Dunham

Joanna Elizabeth Dunham was an English actress, best noted for her work on stage and television. She appeared in several major films.

Born in Luton, Bedfordshire, Dunham attended RADA in 1965, the same year as Susannah York and Brian Epstein.

Best-known for her role as Arlette Van Der Valk in the 1977 Euston Films series of Van Der Valk, she also appeared in the 1958 The Invisible Man series, but was first noticed as Mary Magdalene in the feature film The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). She was recommended by Marilyn Monroe to take on the role, after Dunham was spotted by Monroe in New York in 1962, who had seen her performance in Franco Zeffirelli's production of Romeo and Juliet. . Dunham's other film roles include The House That Dripped Blood (1970), Scandal (1989) and The Hour Of The Pig (1993). Following her Space:1999 appearance, she was cast as Anna Bowen in Gerry Anderson's TV pilot The Day After Tomorrow.

She turned to painting after her acting career declined, and created a gallery in a converted farm building in Suffolk, mounting exhibitions there, as well as at at the New English Art Club in London and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.

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