- Ravaged by cancer, a few weeks prior to her death she checked herself out of the hospital to host a wedding party at her Beverly Hills home for Carrie Fisher and Paul Simon. Just a few days later, her condition rapidly deteriorated. She then spent her last few weeks at Encino Hospital under aggressive treatment. She lost her battle on Saturday, October 8, 1983, at 9:15 pm.
- Interred at Hollywood Memorial Cemetery (now called Hollywood Forever), Hollywood, California, USA, in the Abbey of the Psalms, Sanctuary of Faith, 2nd from bottom, near the end of the hall. She always loved sleeping, and her mausoleum marker carries an admonition not to wake her while she's getting her beauty sleep: "Go Away - I'm Asleep".
- Was a successful teenage model.
- Filmed in 1980-1981, Harnessing the Sun (1981) was her last picture, although some films shot earlier (e.g., Only When I Laugh (1981)) were released after that film.
- A firm believer in the paranormal, while on location in Texas filming Harnessing the Sun (1981), she persuaded the film's director, Dirk Wayne Summers, to fly in a clairvoyant aura reader. She arranged for the entire crew to receive extrasensory readings. The clairvoyant spent a week with the film's cast and crew. When Summers was asked by a reporter from a Dallas newspaper why he approved such unusual arrangements--and did CBS know--Summers answered: "Joan Hackett is so great to work with and so perfect in her role that I would have flown in Uri Geller if Joan had wanted him.".
- She won an Obie award in 1961 for Call Me By My Rightful Name.
- Daughter of Irish and Italian immigrant parents, and educated at Catholic schools in NYC.
- Was a dedicated social activist.
- Ex-stepmother of James Mulligan.
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