Joan Hotchkis is an American stage, screen and television actress, writer and performance artist. A lifetime member of the Actors Studio and the Dramatists Guild, Hotchkis is best known for playing Dr. Nancy Cunningham for several seasons on "The Odd Couple," for co-writing with Eric Morris the seminal acting manual "No Acting Please", which is still used in colleges and conservatories., and for her groundbreaking performance art works in the 1990s.
Career
From the 1950s through the 1990s, Hotchkis played many roles in television, film and theater. She was featured in Broadway productions of "It's a Bird It's a Plane It's Superman", "Advise and Consent," and "Write Me A Murder" before playing Myra on soap opera "The Secret Storm" for several years in the early 60s. In 1967, she moved back to Los Angeles and worked steadily in television through the 1970s. Most notably, Hotchkis played Dr. Nancy Cunningham, sometime girlfriend of Oscar Madisonon the television version of The Odd Couple; Ellen in the Emmy-winning series My World and Welcome to It; and co-starred on "L.A.T.E.R.". as Oscar Madison, and Janis Hansen. Hotchkis also made many guest appearances on TV shows such as Bewitched, St. Elsewhere, Lou Grant, Charlie's Angels, Mannix, Marcus Welby, Barnaby Jones and more. On the big screen, she co-starred as Mama Hartley in the feature film "Ode to Billy Joe". Hotchkis began writing original material in the 70s, beginning with a one-woman play called "Legacy," depicting an upper class housewife having a mental and emotional breakdown. Eric Morris directed the play on stage; director Karen Arthur saw the play and approached Hotchkis proposing to make a film version, with Arthur as director and Hotchkis as writer, producer and star. The resulting film, "Legacy", won Best Newcomer at the Tehran Film Festival. In the early 1980s, Hotchkis returned to the stage, performing for several years in regional theaters such as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Milwaukee Repertory Theater before returning home to start in "The Glass Menagerie" at Los Angeles Theater Center and do the occasional television role.
Tearsheets Productions
Beginning in the late 1980s, Hotchkis resumed writing original material, this time moving beyond legitimate theater into the performance art world. She founded the Santa Monica-based Tearsheets Productions. and wrote, produced and performed two solo performance pieces. The first, Tearsheets: Rude Tales from the Ranch, toured the United States in the early 1990s and went abroad to the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe, where it was the only U.S. production to win a Fringe First Award. Her second solo work was Elements of Flesh: Or Screwing Saved My Ass, about aging and sexuality.
Personal life
Hotchkis was born in Los Angeles, California and raised in San Marino. She graduated from Smith College in 1949, got a Master's degree in Early Childhood Education from Bank Street Teacher's College in 1951, and taught nursery school in New York City for a short time before finally yielding to her lifelong desire to become an actress. Staying in New York to pursue her career, she met director Robert Foster on a live commercial in 1958; they married and had a daughter, Paula, in 1962. In 1967, they divorced and Hotchkis moved with Paula back to Los Angeles where she was getting many TV offers and where she had family. She never remarried, but maintained a good co-parenting relationship with Foster. Hotchkis' lifelong interest in psychology led her to eventually become a part-time paraprofessional in aggression training at the Institute of Group Psychotherapy, and her interest in politics led her to be increasingly active in political organizations and social justice nonprofits, such as The Liberty Hill Foundation. Now retired, Hotchkis enjoys a quiet life in Los Angeles.
