Joanna Pettet, famous for her role as one of the Vassar graduates in Sidney Lumet's 1966 adaptation of novelist Mary McCarthy's bestseller The Group and a spy in David Niven's "James Bond" film Casino Royale, died Tuesday, July 7. She was 83.
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Her death was announced on
Facebook by friend and former manager Pam DuBois, who noted that Pettet died on the anniversary of the death of her son (with actor and former husband Alex Cord) Damien Zachary Cord."We all loved Jo," DuBois wrote. "But there was one person who loved her more. And yesterday, on the 31st anniversary of his death, Damien Zach took his mother to heaven. And there she will stay with him forever."
A cause of death has not yet been revealed.
Life and Legacy of Joanna Pettet
Born in London on November 16, 1942, Pettet moved to New York City at age 16. There, she studied with Sanford Meisner.
At 19, she debuted on Broadway in "Take Her, She's Mine" (1961).
From 1964, she was a familiar face on TV.
In The Group, Pettet played Kay, the most grounded of the otherwise affluent friend group who marries an abusive man. The controversial film touched on several then-delicate subjects, including lesbianism, marital abuse and mental illness.
The following year, Pettet starred as Mata Bond in Casino Royale. The feature film starred Woody Allen, Peter Sellers, and David Niven, among others.
Despite grossing over $40 million on a $12 million budget, Casino Royale was not well received by critics. The movie boasts a 26 percent Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes. Still, Pettet is remembered favorably for her role as Mata Bond in the satirical film.
In the early 1970s, Pettet appeared in four episodes of Rod Serling's NBC anthology series Night Gallery. In the fourth and fifth seasons of CBS' Knots Landing in 1983, she played Janet Baines, a homicide detective looking into the death of singer Ciji Dunne (Lisa Hartman).
Pettet also shares a strange connection to infamous killer Charles Manson. On August 8, 1969, Pettet had lunch with a pregnant Sharon Tate just hours before the Manson Family murdered Tate, her unborn child, and four others.
Her visit that day is re-created in Quentin Tarantino's 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Her final role came in Terror in Paradise (1990), after which she retired from acting.
May she rest in peace.
