One of the Bay Area’s most beloved actors and clowns has died.
Joan Mankin was 67, and was suffering from early dementia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) when she passed away on Saturday at home in San Francisco.
Mankin worked with Bay Area theater companies, large and small, from her debut in 1970 with the San Francisco Mime Troupe to more recent gigs with the American Conservatory Theater and California Shakespeare Theater, where she was a company member, to the tiny, Oakland-based Stagebridge troupe .
Mankin began her career as a pioneer female clown, inventing the comically self-absorbed character Queenie Moon for the now defunct Pickle Family Circus.
“She has empowered so many young women around the Bay Area to do physical theater,” said fellow Pickle clown Jeff Raz, who admired Mankin’s commitment no matter how small or large the project. “When she worked with people, she was all there.”