Shortly after high school, Rose moved to California and found work at the Pasadena Playhouse. At age 19, Rose Marie Emma was signed by Paramount Pictures as part of a young group the studio dubbed the “Golden Circle”. She began work under the stage name Joan Taylor and Paramount insured her legs for $100,000.

Many of her big screen appearances were in popular western films, where generally she played the love interest of Randolph Scott and other top stars. Her movie debut was in Fighting Man of The Plains in 1949. In television, she played similar, recurring roles, and is best remembered for the TV show The Rifleman where she played Milly Scott, starring alongside Chuck Connors.

She retired in 1963 to raise a family, but later wrote for film and TV in addition to making cameos. She married Leonard Freeman, a television writer best known for creating Hawaii Five-O in 1968 – Rose managed the series after her husband’s death in 1974. She later turned her hand to writing and was co-writer of the movie Fools Rush In starring Salma Hayek and Mathew Perry.

Rose Freeman died in 2012 in Santa Monica, Calif., where she is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery.