Above: Constance Worth (Jocelyn Howarth) manages a smile while being made up during shooting of the abysmal film, The Wages of Sin (1936). The phrase “endless disappointments” is suggested by Andrée Wright’s 1987 account of her life. [1]Photo – Author’s collection. Photographer unknown
The Five second version
Born in Sydney, New South Wales, on 19 August 1911, Constance Worth was known to family and friends in Australia as Joy. She used the stage name Jocelyn Howarth in Australia. It was in the US that she adopted the stage name Constance Worth.
A talented and popular actress who appeared on stage and in several films in Australia, she travelled to the US in 1936 to pursue her career. She has often been represented as an Australian pioneer in Hollywood – part of the wave of Australian women who travelled there for work between the wars. Sadly, her experiences in the US suggests she was continually frustrated by underwhelming roles in B films, and by poor treatment by the studio system. She died in Los Angeles, California USA on 18 October 1963, aged only 52. The IMDB suggests she appeared in 35 US films, sometimes in uncredited roles.
(See Note 1 below regarding the British actress Constance Worth)
Enid Joyce Howarth was born in Sydney on 19 August, 1911.[2]NSW Births Deaths and Marriages certificate 44906/1911, Enid Joyce Howarth She was one of Australian director Ken G Hall’s “finds,” making a great impression under her stage name, Jocelyn Howarth, in The Squatter’s Daughter (1933) and The Silence of Dean Maitland (1934) before moving to Hollywood in 1936, where she was given or adopted the stage name Constance Worth. But her story was not a happy one. Indeed, her US film career would end up being one of frustration and continual disappointment. She spent much of her Hollywood career chasing film roles that either did not eventuate or failed to live up to expectations.[3]See Wright (1987) p63-64
To family and friends she was known all her life as Joy. The youngest of three daughters[4]Gwen born 1908, Nancy born 1910 born to wealthy Sydney importer Moffat Howarth and his wife Maryellen nee Dumbrill, her childhood was privileged but the family had its moments of unhappiness – and her parents finally divorced very publicly and acrimoniously in 1921.[5]Truth (Syd) 25 Sept, 1921, p7 After leaving St Gabriel’s Church of England School, Waverley, she involved herself in amateur theatre, appearing in a production of Cynara.[6]Despite many the many references to the contrary, the Ascham school archivist has assured the author that Jocelyn did not attend their school
In 1933, Ken Hall tested her for The Squatter’s Daughter, his entertaining film of Australian pastoral life.[8]Hall gave an account of testing Joy in his autobiography (1980) p58 Hall made much of her ability and composure during the film’s spectacular scenes – especially the bush fire scene. Publicity from production company Cinesound helped establish her reputation as “Australia’s bravest girl”. Cinesound ensured she appeared at screenings of the film around Australia and she certainly impressed reviewers. In late 1933, a reviewer from the Melbourne Argus wrote; “She is a most winning and attractive figure, who both looks and acts her part. She will establish a reputation for her work in this film.” [9]The Argus (Melb) 23 Oct 1933, P5 She certainly looked the part of the glamourous film star, but her answers to the press as she traveled Australia were well considered and also revealed a mature and thoughtful mind. In May 1934 The Silence of Dean Maitland was released with Joy in a supporting role and again, she enjoyed good reviews. According to Ken Hall, she had wanted the leading role in this film.
Through 1934 and 1935, Joy waited for more parts in film. She performed on stage in Ten Minute Alibi and The Wind and the Rain and in several radio plays. Five feet, five inches tall, Blonde, blue eyed, and widely admired for her willingness to throw herself with gusto into her roles, Joy was a talented and seemingly confident young Australian about to go places.
She attracted great attention, and appears to have been briefly engaged to “Digger Comedian” Johnnie Marks. But unfortunately the problem for all of Australia’s enthusiastic young actors was that there were few feature films being made. Appearances – in advertising for iced tea and on radio with James Raglan, would not have satisfied her interests and ambitions for very long. So, in April 1936, aged 25, Joy sailed for California on the Matson liner Monterey, determined to try her luck in Hollywood.
Journalists reported Joy and a travelling companion mixing cocktails for well-wishers in their cabin on the eve of departure. Although she publicly claimed to be “loaded with introductions to people in Hollywood,” she was cautious enough to add “it seems to me going to Hollywood in search of a career is like taking a ticket in the lottery …” [12]The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 April 1936, P20 And so it was. Despite travelling on the Monterey with actor and director Miles Mander, and enjoying welcome dinners with the likes of expat Australian director John Farrow and actress Maureen O’Sullivan, by August 1936, Joy had received no film offers. In an angry despair she reportedly made a half-hearted attempt to take her own life. She was saved by the timely intervention of young actor friend, Tyrone Power, whom she telephoned for help.[13]Los Angeles Times, 5 Aug 1936, PA2 via Newspapers.com Unfortunately, Joy found herself dogged by reports of this event for the rest of her Hollywood career, and the explanation of what had happened with the gas in her flat changed and therefore became less believable (a pot boiling over,[14]Santa Rose Republican, 10 Aug 1936, P9 and Prescott Evening Courier, 11 August 1936 P5 via Newspapers.com a gas leak,[15]The Daily News (Perth WA)14 Sep, 1937, P1, a new type of stove,[16]The Mail (Adel. SA) 14 Aug 1937, P1 a heater[17]The Daily Telegraph (Syd)13 Jul 1937, P2 over time. Years later, she would publicly acknowledge how hard her early years in Hollywood had been. “I really was in an emotional state in those days… I had little faith in myself and still less money.”[18]Sydney Morning Herald 5 Nov 1961, P27 “I’ll rebuild my life as an actress” via
Joy’s luck changed soon after this incident and she finally secured a contract with RKO. She took the lead in two underwhelming mystery/adventure films, China Passage and Windjammer, both released in 1937. On China Passage she was to co-star with Vinton Haworth, so at the suggestion or perhaps insistence of RKO she changed her stage name to Constance Worth.
In the midst of this excitement, she met another actor, a friend of Tyrone’s, and began an intense relationship. Unfortunately the object of her affection was serial Hollywood womaniser, George Brent, who already had two failed marriages and numerous relationships behind him. Under intense pressure from Brent, they married, secretly, in Mexico in May, 1937. It was a disaster and within months the entire saga was played out in the press in agonising detail. After a few weeks of marriage, Brent had become morose, withdrawn and uncommunicative, later to suggest he realised he had made a terrible mistake. Brent attempted to have the marriage annulled on the grounds that having been conducted in Mexico it wasn’t a legal marriage, but before the end of the year it ended up as a full-blown stoush in a US divorce court.
When Joy’s mother Mary-Ellen was pressed to comment she said; “when I first met Brent I was not impressed.” But “Joy…was in love and that was all that mattered to me.”[23]The Australian Women’s Weekly, Dec 11, 1937, p27 Mary-Ellen was to spend the next twenty years worrying about Joy, while Moffatt Howarth repeatedly told his daughter to come home to Sydney.
Joy’s sister Gwen Howarth visited Hollywood in late 1937, to support her sister through the divorce. Her thoughtful and considered views about Hollywood appeared in The Australian Women’s Weekly, in September and October 1937.[24]Joy’s accounts appear in The Australian Women’s Weekly, Sept 11, 1937, Page 3 and The Australian Women’s Weekly, Sept 18, 1937, Page 4 While she celebrated Australian successes, amongst them that of Mary Maguire, Gwen Howarth didn’t balk at reporting the reality, which was often quite the opposite to the well-peddled stereotype of Hollywood success. She also told The Sydney Morning Herald of “Some of Hollywood’s Failures” in August: “Hollywood … is a city of hopes which are fulfilled for few. Its drug-stores, shops, and restaurants have as assistants and waitresses scores of beautiful girls who linger on in the hope of gaining employment in films. And most of them wait in vain.” Little did she imagine that a few years later, her sister Joy would also turn to waitressing when acting jobs dried up.[25]The Sydney Morning Herald, Nov 5, 1961 p27
Gwen also wrote a scathing account of the way the press reported events relating to her sister in Hollywood: “I was rather amused to read in a recent paper here… ‘Miss Worth had been seen out dining alone and she would be leaving for Europe next month.’ She has not dined out alone since she has been here, and will not be leaving for Europe next month. But that is Hollywood. What they don’t know, they invent.”[26]The Australian Women’s Weekly, Sept 18, 1937, p4
Of course, there is an irony in Gwen’s “letters from Hollywood.” Despite her efforts to report to Australian readers with a high degree of reflection and honesty, the papers that carried her occasional accounts were the same ones that reported the nonsense and fed the impossible fantasy.
The Brent affair of 1937 undermined Joy’s public standing as a serious actress and RKO offered her no further roles. She was too closely associated with a messy public divorce to warrant more effort by the studio. In a 1945 interview, she acknowledged that not only had Brent’s rejection hurt her deeply, it had also hurt her career.[28]The Australasian (Melb) 25 Aug 1945, p18 But besides this, the studio had dozens of young women keen to pursue film careers.
Joy’s next film was also a starring role, but in a minor studio exploitation flick – The Wages of Sin, a story of a young woman lured into prostitution. Producer Willis Kent was notorious for his sensationalist films made outside the Hollywood production code. The young Australian was desperate for work after the Brent divorce and apparently felt she had no other option. Perhaps she convinced herself that there was something worthwhile about the film. There wasn’t, but she made a great effort with the useless script, her Sydney accent sounding incongruous alongside the broad US accents of her co-stars.
The scandalous film had only limited release in the US, usually opening and closing in towns before local authorities could act. It was never released in Australia.
Not surprisingly, when Joy returned home to Australia in June 1939 she let slip her true opinions about working in the Hollywood studio system. It gave an actress “no scope” she said, and added that she “far preferred the stage.” She modelled the spring collection for Anthony Hordens department store and appeared at the Minerva Theatre (under her real name) in Good Morning, Bill.
In October 1939, Joy announced she had been “called back” to Hollywood to do film work. This might have been for Angels Over Broadway (1940), but perhaps the dream of success in Hollywood was simply too strong. Back in Hollywood as Constance Worth again, she worked tirelessly over the next few years to re-establish herself as an actress. She freelanced, taking a mixture of uncredited, minor and supporting roles. A two year contract with Columbia was signed in the early 1940s, although she also suggested to journalist Lon Jones that finding work had been so difficult she had taken up waitressing.[30]Lon Jones was an Australian journalist based in Hollywood. See The Australasian (Melb) 25 Aug 1945, p18
In 1943 she landed a leading role in Republic’s fifteen part serial G-Men Versus the Black Dragon. Playing British agent Vivian Marsh, she lurches from one hair-raising scenario to the next, tied to buzz-saws and fiendish torture machines by wicked Japanese spies, regularly saved “just in time” by US agent Rex Bennett, played by Rod Cameron. Unfortunately, while Director William Witney admired Joy as an actress, in his autobiography he also commented on the reputation the thirty-two year old Australian had developed. “One of the best actresses that I’d ever worked with. She handled her body well, was a good study and was as pretty as any blonde in pictures. Unfortunately she drank.”[32]Witney (1996) p324-328
Cary Grant’s biographers, Charles Higham and Roy Moseley, also commented on this aspect of Joy’s personality, and a memorable early morning fight she had with actor Phyllis Brooks, at a Hollywood party sometime in 1940.[33]Higham & Moseley (1989) p109
In 1943’s Crime Doctor, the first of a long running series of crime films, Joy plays a nurse who is in the ward just before the hero, Ordway, awakes (He has amnesia and doesn’t recall, no matter how hard he tries, that he was a gangster). Joy’s lines, as Nurse Betty, include this banter with another nurse as they fuss about Ordway. Here was Constance Worth – well and truly typecast.
Nurse Betty: From where I sit he promises to be good looking
Nurse 2: I wonder if he’s married…
Nurse Betty: If he appeals to me, he’s married!
Nurse 2 (laughing): Well you can’t do anything with an unconscious guy!
Nurse Betty: You should know some of the men I’ve been out with!
And later when Nurse Betty asks a doctor whether there is any news as to the patient’s identity:
Doctor: Apparently no one misses him
Nurse Betty: (aloud, but almost to herself) I would, if he were mine![35]Transcription – copy in the author’s collection
In 1945, Joy was in the news again in connection with another court case, but this time she was named as co-respondent. Wilma Pierce, the wife of Bill Pierce, a Hollywood scriptwriter, had found her husband in Joy’s flat. Joy was apparently semi-naked when private detectives burst in, but she insisted there was nothing illicit in their relationship. They were just friends. She claimed Pierce had too much to drink “and decided to spend the night on the apartment couch, while she used the bedroom.”[36]See Los Angeles Times, July 22, 1945, p13 and The Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 11 Jan 1946, p1 Following the divorce, in March 1947 Bill and Joy married in Nevada.
Joy kept on working and in total, had appeared in at least 32 Hollywood films in the ten years 1939 – 1949. In this writer’s view, meaningless roles in underwhelming films soon became the norm for her, although as Graham Shirley notes (below), her supporting role in the film noir Deadline at Dawn (1946) is a reminder of what might have been.
Her final film was in the B-western film, Western Renegades, in 1949. With light entertainment offered by the plump and ever good-humoured Johnny Mack Brown, lots of western stereotypes and “comedy relief” provided by aging ventriloquist Max Terhune and his dummy Elmer, the audience for this film was clearly the emerging post-war generation of young American boys, about to be exposed to the onslaught of TV westerns. Taking another minor supporting role and looking thinner than ever, Joy played a flashy “actress” hired to impersonate a missing mother, Ann Gordon. In her final scene, she is strangled or bashed-up, it’s not clear which, at the foot of the stairs of the Gordonville hotel by the angry daughter of the real Ann Gordon.
In mid 1950 it was reported that she was pregnant.[39]Personal correspondence with a cousin, and also see Louella Parsons in The San Francisco Examiner, May 6, 1950 p7 If this was true, she did not carry the child to full term successfully, as there were no children from Bill and Joy’s relationship. There were also no more film roles after 1949, despite several reports that she was about to re-boot her career.[40]See for example The San Francisco Examiner Sept 8, 1956, p21 and Sydney Morning Herald 5 Nov 1961, p27 She did at least, have the presence in the US of sister Gwen, who had married William Babylon in 1944 – although Gwen now lived in Maryland.[41]The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 Apr 1944, p5
Joy Howarth died at age 52, on 18th October 1963, of complications arising from cirrhosis of the liver.[43]Joy Howarth Pierce, State of California Certificate of Death, 7053 21590 It was a thoroughly dismal end to what had started out as a brilliant career for a genuinely capable actress. With the benefit of hindsight, it would seem Joy’s greatest pleasure came from performing on screen and stage at home, where to Australians, she was always a star.
Joy Howarth was never completely happy with her stage name. She complained on one occasion that it brought her bad luck. Her signature here, for a 1940s fan, looks like it was scribbled under sufferance. Author’s collection.
Note 1
Joy is regularly confused with British stage actress Constance Wadsworth (born 1892) who used the stage name Constance Worth for several films in England between 1919 and 1922. Wadsworth was the second wife of actor Dan Rolyat (Herbert Taylor) (1872-1927).
Nick Murphy, May 2018, updated 2022, 2024
References
- Special Thanks
Marguerite Gillezeau, Archivist at Ascham School.
The Marriner Theatrical Archive, Melbourne Australia
Film Clips
- NFSA Website The Australian Screen Clips from The Squatter’s Daughter
- Many of her US films now appear to be in the public domain and can be found online. These include Windjammer (1937), Borrowed Hero (1941) , Criminals Within (1941), City without Men (1943), The Kid Sister (1945) , Sensation Hunters (1945)
Text
- Ina Bertrand (1989) Cinema in Australia. A Documentary History. New South Wales University Press.
- Ken G. Hall (1977) Directed by Ken G. Hall, autobiography of an Australian film maker. Lansdowne Press.
- Charles Higham & Roy Moseley (1990) Cary Grant. The Lonely heart. Avon Books
- Scott O’Brien (2014) George Brent: Ireland’s Gift to Hollywood and Its Leading Ladies. Bear Manor Media
- Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper (1980) Australian Film 1900-1977. Oxford Uni Press/AFI
- Eric Schaeffer (1999) “Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!” A History of Exploitation Films, 1919-1959. Duke University Press.
- Amber Sloan (1998) Jocelyn Howarth. Bonza RMIT film resource, via National Library of Australia.
- William Witney (1996) In a Door, into a Fight, Out a Door, into a Chase: Moviemaking Remembered by the Guy at the Door. McFarland & Co.
- Andrée Wright (1987) Brilliant Careers: Women in Australian Cinema. MacMillan
National Library of Australia, Trove
- The Australian Women’s Weekly, Aug 28. 1937, Page 4
- The Australian Women’s Weekly, Oct 16, 1937, Page 4
- The Australian Women’s Weekly, Dec 11, 1937, Page 26
- The Australian Women’s Weekly, Nov 30, 1940, Page 20
- The Australian Women’s Weekly, Dec 12, 1942, Page 12
Footnotes
| ↑1 | Photo – Author’s collection. Photographer unknown |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | NSW Births Deaths and Marriages certificate 44906/1911, Enid Joyce Howarth |
| ↑3 | See Wright (1987) p63-64 |
| ↑4 | Gwen born 1908, Nancy born 1910 |
| ↑5 | Truth (Syd) 25 Sept, 1921, p7 |
| ↑6 | Despite many the many references to the contrary, the Ascham school archivist has assured the author that Jocelyn did not attend their school |
| ↑7 | Table Talk, 20 July 1933. Via State Library of Victoria. |
| ↑8 | Hall gave an account of testing Joy in his autobiography (1980) p58 |
| ↑9 | The Argus (Melb) 23 Oct 1933, P5 |
| ↑10 | Unfortunately only a few of Ken Hall’s films are available publicly, in shortened low-quality versions from US sources, including this one. Author’s collection |
| ↑11 | Table Talk, 23 August, 1934, P17, via State Library of Victoria. |
| ↑12 | The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 April 1936, P20 |
| ↑13 | Los Angeles Times, 5 Aug 1936, PA2 via Newspapers.com |
| ↑14 | Santa Rose Republican, 10 Aug 1936, P9 and Prescott Evening Courier, 11 August 1936 P5 via Newspapers.com |
| ↑15 | The Daily News (Perth WA)14 Sep, 1937, P1, |
| ↑16 | The Mail (Adel. SA) 14 Aug 1937, P1 |
| ↑17 | The Daily Telegraph (Syd)13 Jul 1937, P2 |
| ↑18 | Sydney Morning Herald 5 Nov 1961, P27 “I’ll rebuild my life as an actress” via |
| ↑19 | A syndicated US news agency photo, Author’s collection. |
| ↑20 | Photo is an enlargement from an RKO film publicity photo. Author’s Collection. The film has recently been re-released on DVD |
| ↑21 | Cine-Mundial, Jan-Dec 1937. Via Lantern, Media History Digital Library |
| ↑22 | Picture play Magazine, 1938, Media History Digital Library |
| ↑23 | The Australian Women’s Weekly, Dec 11, 1937, p27 |
| ↑24 | Joy’s accounts appear in The Australian Women’s Weekly, Sept 11, 1937, Page 3 and The Australian Women’s Weekly, Sept 18, 1937, Page 4 |
| ↑25 | The Sydney Morning Herald, Nov 5, 1961 p27 |
| ↑26 | The Australian Women’s Weekly, Sept 18, 1937, p4 |
| ↑27 | Author’s collection |
| ↑28 | The Australasian (Melb) 25 Aug 1945, p18 |
| ↑29 | The Wages of Sin is now in the public domain. Copy in the author’s collection |
| ↑30 | Lon Jones was an Australian journalist based in Hollywood. See The Australasian (Melb) 25 Aug 1945, p18 |
| ↑31 | Author’s Collection |
| ↑32 | Witney (1996) p324-328 |
| ↑33 | Higham & Moseley (1989) p109 |
| ↑34 | Hollywood Jan-Dec 1942 via Lantern, Media History Digital Library |
| ↑35 | Transcription – copy in the author’s collection |
| ↑36 | See Los Angeles Times, July 22, 1945, p13 and The Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 11 Jan 1946, p1 |
| ↑37 | On the cover of Australasian, 25 August, 1945 |
| ↑38 | Author’s Collection. Probably a public relations photo by Columbia Pictures. |
| ↑39 | Personal correspondence with a cousin, and also see Louella Parsons in The San Francisco Examiner, May 6, 1950 p7 |
| ↑40 | See for example The San Francisco Examiner Sept 8, 1956, p21 and Sydney Morning Herald 5 Nov 1961, p27 |
| ↑41 | The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 Apr 1944, p5 |
| ↑42 | Author’s collection. undated |
| ↑43 | Joy Howarth Pierce, State of California Certificate of Death, 7053 21590 |