Joan Darling (born April 14 1935, Boston, Massachusetts) is an actor, film and television director and a dramatic arts instructor.

Joan "Joni" Kugell began her career with the New York improvisational theater troupe "Premise Players", and soon graduated to off-Broadway and Broadway productions. She gravitated to feature films and television in the 1970s. She was a regular on the law series, Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law, playing office secretary to Arthur Hill, Lee Majors and David Soul.

Darling directed episodes of the television series Rhoda, Doc, Taxi, Hizzoner, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Magnum, P.I., and Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories, as well as the feature film The Check is in the Mail, and a number of made-for-television films.

She directed the famous "Chuckles Bites the Dust" episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and received a 1976 Emmy nomination for her efforts. Awards/1976" target="_blank">http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/Emmy_Awards/1976

In 1976 she broke new ground when she directed the feature film, _First Love, starring Susan Dey. At the time, this made Darling part of a tiny circle of women directors to direct a major Hollywood studio feature film. Only such Hollywood icons as Ida Lupino and Dorothy Arzner preceded her in doing so. She was one of the pioneering women directors (along with Karen Arthur, Gabrielle Beaumont, and Sharron Miller) who worked regularly in mainstream Hollywood in the 1970s and 1980s.

Joan Darling began her career with the New York improvisational theater troupe "Premise Players", and soon graduated to off-Broadwy and Broadway productions. She made her film debut in 1964 and, in the early '70s, landed a regular role on the "Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law" (1971) TV series. In addition to acting in TV series, she began to write for them. Her first directorial job was for the pilot of the hit '70s TV series "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" (1976) and she directed several of the series' episodes. She became one of the first female TV directors to be steadily employed on various series, and directed many episodes of "M*A*S*H" (1972), the "Mary Tyler Moore" (1970) show and "Bob Newhart Show, The" (1972). She made her film debut in 1977 with the critically acclaimed but financially unsuccessful First Love (1977), and has made several theatrical and made-for-TV movies since then.