Marvel legend Stan Lee's wife Joan Lee has died at 93
Joan Lee, the beloved wife of Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee, has died at the age of 93.
“Joan Lee passed away this morning quietly and surrounded by her family,” a spokesperson said in a statement, released yesterday.
“The family ask that you please give them time to grieve and respect their privacy during this difficult time.”
According to reports, she had suffered a stroke earlier this week, and had been hospitalised in Los Angeles.
Marvel added in a statement: “We are so saddened to hear about the loss of Joan Lee. We lost a member of the Marvel family today and our thoughts and prayers go out to Stan and his daughter Joan in this difficult time.”
Lee married Joan on December 5, 1947, having two children together; Joan Celia in 1950 and Jan, who sadly died just three days after her birth in 1953.
Speaking about meeting Joan, a British former hat model, he told The Hollywood Reporter the romantic story of their first meeting just last year:
“When I was young, there was one girl I drew; one body and face and hair. It was my idea of what a girl should be. The perfect woman. And when I got out of the Army, somebody, a cousin of mine, knew a model, a hat model at a place called Laden Hats. He said, ‘Stan, there’s this really pretty girl named Betty. I think you’d like her. She might like you. Why don’t you go over and ask her to lunch.’ Blah, blah, blah.
“So I went up to this place. Betty didn’t answer the door. But Joan answered, and she was the head model. I took one look at her — and she was the girl I had been drawing all my life. And then I heard the English accent. And I’m a nut for English accents! She said, ‘May I help you?’ And I took a look at her, and I think I said something crazy like, ‘I love you.’ I don’t remember exactly. But anyway, I took her to lunch. I never met Betty, the other girl. I think I proposed to [Joan] at lunch.”
Joan was the person who persuaded Lee to persevere in comic books – he had wanted to become a serious novelist – when he had become disillusioned with an industry obsessed with war and sci-fi comics.
“Before you quit,” she told him, “why don’t you write one comic you are proud of?”
He penned ‘The Fantastic Four’, and his success was sealed.
Joan even provided the voice for Miss Forbes and Madame web in the 1990s animated versions of ‘Fantastic Four’ and Spider-Man’, as well as performing a cameo in ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ last year.
She was also a writer, having published ‘The Pleasure Palace’ in 1987, and reportedly had several unpublished books at home.
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