Joan (Miller) Copeland (born June 1, 1922) is an American actress and the younger sister of the famous prolific Pulitzer Prize winning American playwright and essayist, Arthur Asher Miller, who became the final husband of the famous Hollywood star, Marilyn Monroe. In the 1940s Joan was one of the very first members admitted to the acclaimed Actors Studio. As a stage actor, she moved into television and film during the 1950s, and is best known for her performances in the 1977 Broadway revival of Pal Joey and her award winning performance in the 1981 play The American Clock. She has also played a number of prominent roles on various soap operas throughout her career, including Andrea Whiting on Search for Tomorrow and Gwendolyn Lord Abbott on One Life to Live.
Joan was born the last of three children of Augusta (Barnett) and Isidore Miller in Harlem, in the New York City borough of Manhattan.
Isidore was an Austrian Jewish immigrant, and his wife Augusta was born in New York, to Austrian Jewish parents.
Isidore was a wealthy owner of a women's clothing manufacturing business employing 400 people.
The family lived on West 110th Street in Manhattan, and owned a summer house in Far Rockaway, Queens, and employed a chauffeur.
In the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the family lost almost everything and moved to Gravesend, Brooklyn.
As a teenager, Arthur Miller delivered bread every morning before school to help the family, before he graduated in 1932 from Abraham Lincoln High School, and then moved on to the University of Michigan.
Joan was married to George J. Kupchik, an accomplished engineer and University Dean, from 1946 until his death in 1989, with whom she has one son,
Joan won an Obie Award in 1991 for her portrayal of Eva Adler in The American Plan at the Manhattan Theatre Club.
This week's featured connections are Acadians: Joan is 20 degrees from Joseph Broussard, 21 degrees from Louis Hebert, 23 degrees from Antonine Maillet, 21 degrees from Roméo LeBlanc, 22 degrees from Aubin-Edmond Arsenault, 23 degrees from Louis Robichaud, 22 degrees from Cleoma Falcon, 24 degrees from Rhéal Cormier, 23 degrees from Jack Kerouac, 21 degrees from Maurice Richard, 23 degrees from Ron Guidry and 24 degrees from Beyoncé Knowles-Carter on our single family tree. Login to see how you relate to 33 million family members.