Joanna Cameron was an actress arguably best known for playing the titular character of Isis on the
1970s superhero series The Secrets of Isis. Though the show is often overlooked because
it was made for a Saturday-morning audience instead of prime time, it made Joanna the
first actress to play a superhero on television. Though Joanna's most memorable role was on the
aforementioned children's show, she wasn't afraid to get down and dirty when the job called for it.
Join Facts Verse as we take a look at sensitive photos of Joanna Cameron for mature eyes only.
The Secrets of Isis Made History The television series The Secrets of Isis
debuted on television in the fall of 1975. The show was originally simply called Isis, though
the name was changed to the more pronounced The Secrets of Isis later on. The show revolved around
a made-up superhero by the name of Isis, who was played by an actress by name of Joanna Cameron.
The show predated more notable female superhero television series such as Wonder Woman,
though it rarely gets the credit for it. This is because the later Wonder Woman was made for a
prime-time audience, while The Secrets of Isis was made for kids. Half-hour episodes of the
show could be found premiering every Saturday morning. Children ate up the show’s action,
even if they weren’t consciously aware of its latent message of female empowerment.
The Secrets of Isis came on the air after the success of 1974’s Shazam! Shazam! was
a superhero television series that followed the character of Captain Marvel. The character got
his own feature film in 2019, which also went by the name of Shazam! 1974’s Shazam! proved a
success for its network, and then The Secrets of Isis was dreamt up as a companion piece.
While Shazam! was based upon an existing DC Comics property, The Secrets of Isis and the character
of Isis herself were both original creations. To create the character of Isis, the producers drew
upon Egyptian mythology. However, the show didn’t pay much respect to its mythological origins.
When The Secrets of Isis premiered, it was paired up with Shazam! and the
two programs made up a programming block that went by the name of The Shazam/Isis
Hour. In addition to their two programs appearing alongside each other every Saturday morning, the
two characters also sometimes interacted within their respective series. The producers
knew that they were already appealing to boys with Shazam!, and so they decided
to make the successful show’s companion series centered on a female character.
It’s unclear why they chose not to use an existing female superhero within the
DC Comics universe, but it probably ended up saving the producers a bit of money!
Isis Became a Popular Comic-Book Character Though Isis wasn’t a character within the
universe of DC Comics when The Secrets of Isis premiered, she became one after the show became
successful. Following the success of the series, Isis debuted in the Shazam! comic-book series.
The character of Isis is still a part of the DC Comics universe to this day,
though The Secrets of Isis has been off the air for several decades. In fact,
the woman that brought the character of Isis to life is no longer with us!
The Secrets of Isis may have been a success, but it only lasted for two seasons.
22 episodes of the show were produced in total, and subsequent programming
like the aforementioned Wonder Woman overshadowed the legacy of the show. Though The Secrets of Isis
made Joanna Cameron the very first actress to play a superhero on television, that accomplishment
didn’t do all that much for the actress’s career following the end of the series. Linda Carter gets
all the credit for being the pioneering superhero actress, while Joanna Cameron retired in 1980
and lived the rest of her life performing normal jobs away from the acting world.
Recently, in October of 2021, Joanna Cameron passed away.
The former actress was 73 years old at the time of her passing, and a stroke was her cause
of death. The event of Joanna’s death represented the first time that the former actress’s name had
been in the headlines in decades, as she had retired from acting many years prior. The news
of Joanna’s death was revealed to the public by way of former costar Joanna Pang. Joanna played
Isis’ sidekick on The Secrets of Isis, and that sidekick went by the name of Cindy Lee.
Although neither actress found much success in their Hollywood careers
following The Secrets of Isis’ end after only two seasons, both of them retained
fond memories of their time working together on the short-lived series.
Though The Secrets of Isis was aimed at children, Joanna Cameron did some work before and
after during her career that was decidedly more risqué. If you’re enjoying this video so far, be
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Joanna Cameron Started Acting in College
Joanna Cameron got her start in the entertainment industry when she was only 19 years old, and she
was quite the looker at the time! Joanna didn’t even decide to get into acting until she was
already in college, and it didn’t take her very long to start making waves in the industry based
on her appearance alone. The actress’s Hollywood career started when she was found by Bob Hope,
who went about casting her in his picture How to Commit Marriage. The film also featured
legendary comedic actor Jackie Gleason, who most viewers will know from The Honeymooners.
Getting to work with two big names like Bob Hope and Jackie Gleason at the very
start of her career must have been something for young Joanna Cameron. Following her appearance
in Bob Hope’s How to Commit Marriage, Joanna could be seen playing a lead role
in a picture by the name of B.S. I Love You. Joanna’s role in B.S. I Love You called for
the actress to appear nude, which she didn’t mind doing.
In 1973, just a few years after the release of B.S. I Love You, Joanna took on another lead role.
This time, the role was in a made-for-television picture by the name of The Great American Beauty
Contest. The film was a satire. As one might imagine, the subject of the film’s satire was
beauty contests. Besides the fact that it featured Joanna Cameron in a lead role,
The Great American Beauty Contest was also notable for a few other reasons. For one thing,
legendary television producer Aaron Spelling produced it. For another thing, it featured
an early appearance from future television megastar Farrah Fawcett. Of course, Aaron and
Farrah would go on to work together again a few years later with 1976’s Charlie’s Angels. Like The
Secrets of Isis, Charlie’s Angels was an action series with a female-empowerment angle. However,
Charlie’s Angels has subsisted in the popular lexicon much more than The Secrets of Isis.
Joanna Was Pigeonholed in the Role of Isis Joanna Cameron likely thought that becoming the
first actress to portray a superhero on television would prove her big break, but she ended up being
mistaken. She ended up being pigeonholed in the genre of superhero television, with one of her
few other appearances from around the time coming via the television series The Amazing Spider-Man.
Joanna’s final acting appearance came fittingly via a production that went by the name of Swan
Song. Swan Song was a made-for-television feature that was released in 1980.
Though Joanna Cameron retired from acting in 1980, she didn’t immediately say goodbye to Hollywood
altogether. Instead, the former actress simply set her sights behind the scenes.
The former television star directed her own documentary short that was released
in 1982, and the short was called Blue Angels in Razor Sharp. Not much came from this documentary
short, and Joanna decided to call it quits on the entertainment industry following its release.
In the time since turning her back on Hollywood, Joanna mostly stayed away from the entertainment
industry. However, she did get back to her roots in 2013 when she worked as a camera assistant on a
short film by the name of Stew. Besides this brief return to form, Joanna worked mostly
outside of the entertainment industry in the decades leading up to her death and following
her last appearance before the cameras. Joanna seems to have worked multiple jobs after retiring
from acting. At first, she decided to become a nurse. It has been said that Joanna worked
as a nurse for around a decade before giving the profession up and deciding to get into marketing.
In the years leading up to her death, Joanna Cameron was a marketer for hotels.
Besides Joanna Cameron’s multiple acting appearances on television shows and in movies,
the actress was also a popular model for commercials. There was a time when Joanna
was said to have held the world record for the most commercial appearances,
and this helped Joanna achieve some more ubiquitous popularity during the peak of her fame.
Although Joanna Cameron retired from acting, she did continue going to conventions until her death.
Joanna was always grateful to fans of The Secrets of Isis, even if there weren’t nearly as many
fans of the series as there were of Wonder Woman. Shortly before her recent passing,
Joanna claimed that she wasn’t against the prospect of making a return to the world of acting
at some point in the future, though she wasn’t actively seeking acting opportunities
out. It seems that the former actress was living a life of relative ease working in the
hotel industry, and she didn’t have many negative feelings about Hollywood after leaving it behind.
Though Joanna Cameron made history by becoming the first actress to play a superhero on television,
her legacy has been overshadowed thanks to more popular actresses like Linda Carter. Now it’s time
to hear from you: did you know that Joanna Cameron was the first actress to play a superhero on
television and that she briefly held the world record for the most commercial appearances? As
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