Joan Rice (3 February 1930 – 1 January 1997) was a British film actress. One of four sisters from a broken home, she spent eight years in a convent orphanage in Nottingham. Upon arriving in London she first took a job as a waitress. After being crowned “Miss Nippy” in an in-house beauty contest, she was introduced to the theatrical agent Joan Reese, who secured a screen test and a two-line bit part in the comedy, “One Wild Oat”. Rice is best known for her role as Dalabo in the film His Majesty O’Keefe (1954) which co-starred Burt Lancaster. Apart from that she played Maid Marian in The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952), played the graverobber’s wife in The Horror of Frankenstein and appeared in Operation Bullshine. For several years in the early and mid-1950s, Rice was considered one of ‘Rank’s top stars’.   Joan Rice made 16 films from 1951 to 1970, appearing with such stars as Dirk Bogarde, Audrey Hepburn, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Roger Moore, Margaret Rutherford, Richard Attenborough, and Peter Finch. Joan Rice is probably best known for playing Maid Marian to Richard Todd’s Robin Hood in Disney’s “The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men” (1952), and as Dalabo in “His Majesty O’Keefe” (1954) which co-started Burt Lancaster. Rice was married twice. Her first husband (1953 to 1964) was David Green, son of the American comedian, Harry Green; they had one son, Michael, who committed suicide. In 1984 she married former Daily Sketch journalist Ken McKenzie. Her interment was at Braywick Cemetery in Maidenhead.