Joann Witty Bio
December 7, 1954 / Sagittarius / Age 71
Joann Witty is an American-born Penthouse model, glamour model, and actress, born Priscilla Anne Barnes on December 7, 1954 in Fort Dix, New Jersey, United States.
Throughout her modeling career, she has also appeared as Priscilla Barnes.
Joann Witty was crowned Penthouse Pet of the Month in March 1976, stepping into the spotlight at just 21 years old. With her statuesque 35-23-36 figure, charming brown eyes, honey blond hair, and natural breasts, Joann carries a new sense of confidence, blending youthful softness with a teasing, self-assured edge.
Joann Witty entered Penthouse with the kind of confidence that suggests a woman already halfway to somewhere larger. There was glamour in her, certainly, but also momentum — the feeling that she was not meant to remain a still image for long. She had that unmistakable Hollywood quality before Hollywood had fully claimed her: bright, poised, and carrying just enough edge to make the fantasy feel modern. In March 1976, she appeared not as a finished legend, but as a woman on the verge of one.
What made her especially compelling was the sense of ambition beneath the polish. She did not come across as someone content to be admired from a distance. She seemed intent on moving, learning, and turning presence into career. Even in the Penthouse setting, there is the impression of a performer in waiting — a woman with camera appeal, yes, but also timing, instinct, and the kind of alert self-possession that belongs as much to the screen as to the page. She had the look, but she also had the drive, and that combination tends to travel far.
That promise proved real. While working as a hostess at a Hollywood nightclub, she posed for Penthouse as Pet of the Month in March 1976 under the name Joann Witty. Around that same period, she began studying acting with coach Sal Dano, placing herself among a circle of students that included Tom Selleck, Robert Hays, and Catherine Bach. Her first real break had come earlier, when Bob Hope saw her in a local fashion show and invited her to join his troupe for a 1973 performance at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, an opportunity that helped draw her toward Los Angeles and show business. A second turning point followed when Peter Falk gave her a one-line part on Columbo, opening the door to a run of early screen appearances. From there came roles in The American Girls, Tintorera, Starsky & Hutch, Vega$, Kojak, The Rockford Files, The Love Boat, The Time Machine, A Vacation in Hell, and Sunday Lovers, before wider fame arrived through her later work as Terri Alden on Three's Company and, decades later, Magda Andel on Jane the Virgin.
That larger career gives Joann Witty an added fascination in retrospect. She was never merely a beautiful detour on the road to something else. She was part of the beginning — a woman already testing her future, already learning how to turn attention into longevity. In Penthouse, she appears as youthful promise with real steel underneath, and that is often where the most interesting stories start.
