 She won the drama award at the University of Texas at Austin and performed on a local radio show called "Janelle Sings".Her films included David O. Selznick's Academy Award-winning "Since You Went Away" (1944), with Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Robert Walker and Shirley Temple, and "The Brute Man" (1946), directed by Jean Yarbrough, with Rondo Hatton and Jane "Poni" Adams.Johnson met her Trieste-born Slovene husband, George Dolenz, while performing in a stage play called "Return Engagement", but largely gave up acting after their marriage.