Joan Lee

Joan Lee

Joan Lee (née Boocock; 5 February 1922 – 6 July 2017) was a British-American model and voice actress. She was the wife of comic book writer Stan Lee, whom she met in New York City in the 1940s while working as a hat model. In her later years, Lee became a voice actress and appeared in the Spider-Man and Fantastic Four animated series in the 1990s. Kevin Smith referred to Joan as “Stan’s personal superhero” and “Marvel Muse”. Open main menu Wikipedia Search Wikipedia 9 Joan Boocock Lee EditWatch this page Read in another language For other people named Joan Lee, see Joan Lee (disambiguation). Joan Lee (née Boocock;[2] 5 February 1922 – 6 July 2017) was a British-American model and voice actress. She was the wife of comic book writer Stan Lee, whom she met in New York City in the 1940s while working as a hat model. In her later years, Lee became a voice actress and appeared in the Spider-Man and Fantastic Four animated series in the 1990s. Kevin Smith referred to Joan as “Stan’s personal superhero” and “Marvel Muse”.

Joan Boocock Lee
Joan B. Lee.jpg Joan B. Lee with husband Stan and daughter Joan "J. C." Lee in the 1950s Born Joan Boocock[1] 5 February 1922 Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, England Died 6 July 2017 (aged 95) Los Angeles, California, U.S. Occupation Voice actress, model Years active 1981–2016 Spouse(s) Sanford Weiss (m. 1944; dead in 1947) Stan Lee (m. 1947–2017) Children 2 Contents

Early life
Edit Joan Boocock's birth was registered in the first quarter of 1922 in Castle Ward Rural District (now part of Newcastle's Metropolitan Borough) according to her birth register records.[3] Her father was Norman Dunton Boocock.[4] Her mother's maiden name was Clayton.[3][5] In one interview, she stated that she was born in Gosforth, Newcastle, and grew up and in Fawdon.[6] After World War II, she relocated to the United States as a war bride after marrying an American serviceman,[6] Sanford Dorf Weiss,[4] whom she had only known for 24 hours prior to their marriage in 1943.[7]

Marriage to Stan Lee
Edit Further information: Stan Lee In her early years, Joan Boocock was a well-known hat model before moving to the United States as a war bride to Sanford Dorf Weiss who she separated from not long after [8] and later as wife to Stan Lee.[9]

Lee's cousin had set him up on a blind date with a different model at the agency Joan worked. When Lee went to the modeling agency to meet his intended date, Joan answered the door instead- upon seeing her he immediately professed his love for her and told her he had been drawing her face since childhood.[10]

Lee proposed after two weeks of dating, and she went to Reno, Nevada in order to nullify her previous marriage. On December 5, 1947, she received an annulment for her previous marriage, then married Lee in the room next door.[6][7][9][11] Together, they had two daughters, Joan Celia "J. C." Lee (b. 1950), and Jan Lee, who died three days after delivery in 1953.[12][13] In 1949, the couple bought a two-story, three-bedroom home in Woodmere, Long Island, living there through 1952.[14]

Lee has credited Joan with the inspiration for early incarnations of the Fantastic Four.[citation needed]

Career
Edit In 1981, Stan and Joan Lee moved from New York City to Los Angeles. There, she lent her voice to several animated Marvel shows in the 1990s. She first appeared in Fantastic Four in 1994, voicing a reoccurring character. She voiced a computer in the Iron Man television series for three episodes in 1994.[15] She later appeared in Spider-Man as Madame Web,[16] appearing in eight episodes from 1996 to 1998.[15]

In 2002, she appeared as herself alongside Stan Lee and Kevin Smith in Stan Lee's Mutants, Monsters & Marvels. In 2003, she appeared as herself in the documentary Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked. In 2010, she appeared in a documentary about her husband called With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story.[15] Lee made her last appearance in a cameo in the 2016 film X-Men: Apocalypse alongside her husband.[17]

Writing
Edit In 1987, Joan Lee wrote The Pleasure Palace, her first novel.[18] Three unpublished novels were found among her possessions.

Death
Edit Lee died on July 6, 2017, in Los Angeles from stroke-related complications. Her husband of almost 70 years, and their daughter, Joan, were present as she died.[19] Although several sources gave her age as 93 at the time of her death, British birth records show she was, in fact, 95 years old.[3][9][20]

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Is Marvel's Way Forward in the Past? JULY 06, 2017 3:35pm PT by Andy Lewis

Joan Lee, Wife of Marvel Comics Legend Stan Lee, Dies at 95 The pair, who met when the Marvel boss was supposed to take her friend on a date, were married for 69 years. Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images Stan and Joan Lee

The pair, who met when the Marvel boss was supposed to take her friend on a date, were married for 69 years. Joan Lee, the wife of Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee, died Thursday in Los Angeles. She was 95.

"I can confirm the sad news that Joan Lee passed away this morning quietly and surrounded by her family," a spokesperson for Stan Lee and his family said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. "The family ask that you please give them time to grieve and respect their privacy during this difficult time."

Joan Lee suffered a stroke earlier in the week and was hospitalized, according to sources.

The British former hat model and Lee were married on Dec. 5, 1947, and were by all accounts hopelessly devoted to each other. They had two children: J.C. (Joan Celia), who was born in 1950, and Jan, who died three days after her birth in 1953.

Marvel paid tribute to her in a statement on Thursday: "We are so saddened to hear about the loss of Joan Lee. We lost a member of the Marvel family today and our thoughts and prayers go out to Stan and his daughter Joan in this difficult time."

WATCH Stan Lee | In Memoriam PLAY VIDEO Last year, Lee recounted how he met his wife in a story for THR that celebrated his 75th anniversary in comics. After a childhood sweetheart wed another woman, Joan Clayton impulsively married an American soldier during World War II and moved to New York, where she was extremely unhappy. Meanwhile, a cousin of Lee's wanted to set up the struggling writer with a hat model. Lee tells what happened next:

"When I was young, there was one girl I drew; one body and face and hair. It was my idea of what a girl should be. The perfect woman. And when I got out of the Army, somebody, a cousin of mine, knew a model, a hat model at a place called Laden Hats. He said, 'Stan, there's this really pretty girl named Betty. I think you'd like her. She might like you. Why don't you go over and ask her to lunch.' Blah, blah, blah.

"So I went up to this place. Betty didn't answer the door. But Joan answered, and she was the head model. I took one look at her — and she was the girl I had been drawing all my life. And then I heard the English accent. And I'm a nut for English accents! She said, 'May I help you?' And I took a look at her, and I think I said something crazy like, 'I love you.' I don't remember exactly. But anyway, I took her to lunch. I never met Betty, the other girl. I think I proposed to [Joan] at lunch."

In those days, the quickest way to get divorced was to move to Nevada and stay for six weeks to establish residency. Soon after Joan arrived in Reno, Stan received a letter from her addressed to "Jack," and that worried him.

"Now I'm not the smartest guy in world," recalled Lee. "I know my name isn't 'Jack.' And so why did she write 'Dear Jack'? Maybe I better go to Reno and see what's going on. I got there and she was waiting for me. And there's three guys with her. They all look like John Wayne. Big Western guys! Rugged! And I get off the plane fresh from New York with my little porkpie hat and a little scarf and my gloves. And she's with me. I thought, 'I don't have a chance.' Luckily, I had a chance."

null READ MORE Stan Lee Reflects on His Successes and Regrets: "I Should Have Been Greedier" A judge granted Joan her divorce and about an hour later that judge married her and Lee in a room next door.

The couple returned to New York, where Lee worked at Marvel Comics forerunner Timely/Atlas Comics, a job he initially landed because his cousin Martin Goodman owned the company. Comics were a middling enterprise until Lee and Jack Kirby co-created the Fantastic Four in 1961 (followed by the Hulk, Avengers, Iron Man, X-Men and other characters) and turned the company, renamed Marvel Comics, into a pop culture powerhouse.

In some versions of the origin of the Fantastic Four, Lee credits Joan with inspiring him. He was depressed about his career (Lee had dreams of becoming a serious novelist) and the state of comics (the industry in the 1950s was dominated by stories of war, science fiction and romance, genres he didn't like) and contemplated leaving the business.

"Before you quit," Joan told him, "why don't you write one comic you are proud of?" And thus was born the Fantastic Four.

In 1981, the Lees moved from New York City to California so Stan could work on developing Marvel TV and film projects. Joan did voice work on two 1990s animated Marvel shows, Fantastic Four (as Miss Forbes) and Spider-Man (as Madame Web). She also made a cameo in 2016's X-Men: Apocalypse.

Joan Lee also wrote a 1987 novel, The Pleasure Palace, about a man striving to build the most luxurious ocean liner ever while romancing several women at once. According to her daughter, she had three more unpublished but finished novels at home.

On Friday, Stan's Twitter account shared a cartoon of the husband and wife together, swinging off into the sunset.

On behalf of Stan, thanks for the heartfelt condolences.He is well and truly appreciates the outpouring of love for Joan.-POW! Entertainment pic.twitter.com/AhtKjXWfvX

— stan lee (@TheRealStanLee) July 7, 2017 Borys Kit contributed to this report.

July 7, 12:22 p.m. Updated with the cartoon tweeted from Stan Lee's account.

Andy Lewis ANDY LEWIS

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Alice Vincent, entertainment writer 7 JULY 2017 • 11:33AM Follow Sympathy and tributes have been made following the news that Joan Lee, wife of Marvel Comics founder Stan Lee, has died. She was 93.

A spokesperson for Stan Lee and his family released a statement saying: "I can confirm the sad news that Joan Lee passed away this morning quietly and surrounded by her family. The family ask that you please give them time to grieve and respect their privacy during this difficult time."

The couple were married for 69 years, and their life-long romance reads like something out of the pages of a comic book. Indeed, last year Lee admitted that when he met Joan, he realised that she was "the girl I had been drawing all my life".

Stan Lee with Joan: "I married Joan weeks before my 25th birthday. She was the best present I ever got" Stan Lee with Joan around their wedding: "I married Joan weeks before my 25th birthday. She was the best present I ever got" Joan, Stan told her, was the inspiration behind Gwen Stacy, the first love of Peter Parker (Spider-Man). "Stan has always said I have a cartoon face," she said in an interview in 2002. "I never felt that was kind of complimentary!"

Joan, who was born in England, moved to New York after marrying an American soldier during the Second World War, after her childhood sweetheart wed another woman. She was unhappy living in the city, where she worked as a hat model. When Stan came to the model agency to ask her colleague on a lunch date, Joan opened the door instead.

"I took one look at her – and she was the girl I had been drawing all my life," Stan recalled to The Hollywood Reporter. "And then I heard the English accent. And I’m a nut for English accents! She said, 'May I help you?' And I took a look at her, and I think I said something crazy like, 'I love you.' I don’t remember exactly. But anyway, I took her to lunch. I never met Betty, the other girl. I think I proposed to [Joan] at lunch.”

"The first time he saw me, he said to somebody, 'I've drawn that girl's face a thousand times. I'm going to marry her'," Joan recalled in 2002.

Joan, however, was still married. She moved to Reno, Nevada, where, in the Forties, you could gain a divorce after living in the state for six weeks and declaring residency. She wrote a letter to Stan, but addressed it to "Jack".

Joan and Stan in 2004 CREDIT: MARK MAINZ "Now I’m not the smartest guy in world,” Stan remembered. “I know my name isn’t 'Jack.' And so why did she write 'Dear Jack?' Maybe I better go to Reno and see what’s going on. I got there and she was waiting for me. And there’s three guys with her. They all look like John Wayne. Big Western guys! Rugged! And I get off the plane fresh from New York with my little pork pie hat and a little scarf and my gloves. And she’s with me. I thought, 'I don’t have a chance.' Luckily, I had a chance."

Joan, Stan and their daughter Joan Celia (J.C) It was December 5, 1947. Joan was granted her divorce by the same judge who married them, an hour later, in the room next door.

The pair went on to have two children: J.C (Joan Cecelia) in 1950, and Jan, in 1953, who died three days after her birth.

Joan was instrumental in shaping Stan's career. She is credited as his inspiration in some versions of the origin of the Fantastic Four, the creation that re-invented what comics could be after looking into the dysfunctional lives of its heroes. He was driven to devise the characters, with partner Jack Kirby, after feeling so depressed about the state of the industry that he considered leaving.

"Before you quit," Joan told him, "why don’t you write one comic you are proud of?" Fantastic Four proved to be that comic.

But Joan had her own creative projects, too. In 1987 she published The Pleasure Palace, a novel about a man who juggled multiple relationships while building the most luxurious ocean liner ever. Her daughter, JC, claimed she had three more finished, but unpublished, novels at home.

"My mother is so out-of-the-box and talented," JC told The Huffington Post in 2015. She said of her parents: "It’s like watching a love story. It’s been such a joy. And I’ve gone into the world, and I’ve travelled, and I’ve done my art, but I’ll tell you: I’ve never found anything better than my parents – and their talent and genius, and their love story."

Marvel released a tribute to Joan: "We are so saddened to hear about the loss of Joan Lee. We lost a member of the Marvel family today and our thoughts and prayers go out to Stan and his daughter Joan in this difficult time."

Related Topics Divorce Marvel Hollywood Stan Lee Show comments

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Filmography
Edit Year Title Role Notes Ref 1994 Iron Man Computer Voice Voice [21] 1994 Fantastic Four Miss Forbes Voice [21] 1996–1998 Spider-Man Madame Web Voice [21] 2002 Stan Lee's Mutants, Monsters & Marvels Herself Documentary [15] 2003 Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked Herself Documentary [15] 2010 With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story Herself Documentary [15] 2016 X-Men: Apocalypse Joanie Lee Live-action, cameo [21]