Geneva-Born Actress Joan Taylor, of Movies and 'The Rifleman' Fame, Dies at Age 82

Alert Geneva Patch reader Sonny Miller e-mailed with the sad news that has died.

She was born Rose Marie Emma in Geneva on Aug. 18, 1929, and according to Sonny, she did attend .

The Variety Staff on www.voy.com describes her as "Rose Freeman, an actress under the name Joan Taylor who later managed the Hawaii Five-O property created by her husband, writer-producer Leonard Freeman."

Variety says she "died of natural causes in Santa Monica on Sunday, March 4," at the age of 82.

Under the name Joan Taylor, she starred in such science fiction films as Earth vs. the Flying Saucers and 20 Million Miles to Earth and Westerns including Rose Marie, Apache Woman and War Paint.

But for a lot of us who grew up in the early '60s, she's best known as Milly Scott on The Rifleman, starring alongside Chuck Connors.

Her husband died in 1974, and the Variety staff say Taylor managed the Hawaii Five-O property, including the original series ran from 1968-80 and the CBS series remake that premiered in 2010.

Also, courtesy of Variety, she was born in Lake Forest, IL. Her mother was a vaudeville star in the 1920s and her father managed a movie theater.

She is also the first cousin of Geneva's very own Terry Emma, the executive director of the Geneva History Center.

"Her father, Joe, was my dad's brother," she said in a Geneva Patch comment to the earlier article about Joan. "Joe owned the theatre in Lake Forest and my dad worked for him as assistant manager and usher.

"They had three daughters and I was lucky enough in the 1980s to be a guest at one of their weddings."

Rose is survived by three daughters, two brothers and six grandchildren.