Joanna Pettet was born in Westminster, London, England, daughter of Harold Nigel Egerton Salmon and Cecily J. Tremaine, who were married in Chelsea, London in 1940. Her father, a British Royal Air Force pilot, was killed in the Second World War in 1943.[3]After the war, her mother remarried and settled in Montréal where young Joanna was adopted by her stepfather and assumed his surname of “Pettet”.
When Pettet was 16, she moved to New York City.
Pettet studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, as well as at the Lincoln Center, and made her debut, aged 19, on Broadwayin Take Her, She’s Mine (December 21, 1961-December 8, 1962). She also appeared on Broadway in The Chinese Prime Minister, and Poor Richard.
Beginning in 1964 with an episode of Route 66, she began making guest appearances in several US dramatic television series of the mid-sixties, including The Doctors, The Nurses, The Trials of O’Brien, The Fugitive, A Man Called Shenandoah, and Dr. Kildare.
In 1966, she was cast in writer/producer Sidney Buchman‘s 1966 adaptation of Mary McCarthy‘s novel The Group. The success of that film launched a film career that included roles in The Night of the Generals (1967), as Mata Bond in the James Bondspoof Casino Royale (1967), Peter Yates’s Robbery (1967) with Stanley Baker, Blue (1968) with Terence Stamp, and the Victorian period comedy The Best House in London (1969).
In the 1970s her feature film appearances became sporadic and included roles in the cult horror films Welcome to Arrow Beach(1974) and The Evil (1978). Pettet re-emerged as the star of over a dozen television movies, including The Weekend Nun (1972), Footsteps (1972), Pioneer Woman (1973), A Cry in the Wilderness (1974), The Desperate Miles (1975), The Hancocks (1976), Sex and the Married Woman (1977), Cry of the Innocent (1980) with Rod Taylor, and The Return of Frank Cannon (1980).
She guest-starred four times on the classic Rod Serling anthology series Night Gallery, appearing with her then-husband Alex Cord in the episode “Keep in Touch – We’ll Think of Something”. She starred in the NBC miniseries Captains and the Kings (1976), starred in the episode “You’re Not Alone” from the 1977 NBC anthology series Quinn Martin’s Tales of the Unexpected (known in the United Kingdom as Twist in the Tale),[citation needed] was a guest on both Fantasy Island and The Love Boat (appearing three times on each series), and had a recurring role on Knots Landing in 1983 as Janet Baines, an LAPD homicide detective investigating the murder of singer Ciji Dunne (played by Lisa Hartman).
Through the 1970s and 1980s, Pettet made appearances on the television series Harry O, Banacek, McCloud, Mannix, Police Woman, Knight Rider, Tales of the Unexpected (the UK series) and Murder, She Wrote. In 1984, she appeared as herself in a James Bond tribute episode of The Fall Guy with ex-Bond girls Britt Ekland and Lana Wood.
Her final role was in the 1990 thriller Terror in Paradise, after which she retired from acting, still in her 40s.
On 8 August 1969, Pettet had lunch at the home of actress Sharon Tate, hours before the crimes were committed at that residence by members of the Manson Family. This event is illustrated in the fictional/alternate-reality 2019 film Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood, in which Pettet is portrayed by Rumer Willis.
In 2003, actor Sir Alan Bates bequeathed Pettet £95,000 (equivalent to £189,712 in 2023) upon his death. The two had been friends for many years, and Pettet provided support and companionship during his final months after he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2002. Pettet was quoted as saying: “It was a very touching gesture because he had done everything while he was in hospital to make sure I would be looked after following his death.”
Pettet won a Theatre World Award for 1964–1965 for her work in Poor Richard