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In memory of

Joyce Bishop

Northfield, IL

June 3, 1929 - October 9, 2021

Jun 3, 1929 - Oct 9, 2021

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Joyce Bresee Bishop, a beloved fixture of Chicago’s North Shore theater community and a mother who withstood with dignity and grace the high-profile murders of her youngest daughter, her son-in-law and their unborn child in Winnetka in 1990, has died at age 92.

Bishop was born June 3, 1929 in New York City, months before the great stock market crash. Her father, John J. Bresee, had worked as an architect there and helped work on the Brooklyn Bridge. But with the onset of the Depression they had to move back to Illinois. He attended law school at University of Illinois and went on to become the State’s Attorney of Champaign County, Illinois, serving four terms spanning from 1942 to 1968.

Joyce Bishop attended Champaign public schools, where she excelled in their renowned speech, music and theater program. She spent a summer at the Cherub program in Theater Arts at Northwestern University. She studied music and theater at University of Illinois, where she met her husband M. Lee Bishop, an avid tennis player and Marine during the Korean War, who went on to a career in law. He died in 2003 after their 51-year marriage.

The couple settled in Winnetka with their three daughters, Jennifer, Jeanne and Nancy. The family moved to Oklahoma City for Lee Bishop’s work, where Joyce’s professional theater career flourished. She appeared in numerous professional productions, including Carousel, Peter Pan, The Diary of Ann Frank and The King and I, in which she played the title role of Anna and wore the ball gown from the Broadway production of the musical’s the iconic “Shall We Dance” scene. Bishop was later asked to audition for a Broadway revival of the show opposite actor Yul Brenner, but turned it down, citing her family.

Joyce Bishop continued her theater work after the family moved back to the Chicago area in 1977, performing in community theater productions, including the title role in Mame and in Winnetka’s annual Village Follies, where she was perennially given the bawdiest roles, in contrast to her ladylike demeanor (Her half-nude fan dance can be seen on YouTube). Joyce Bishop worked for years as the Facility Manager at the Winnetka Community House and at a Winnetka Real Estate office.

Bishop was thrust into the spotlight in a way she never wished for on April 7, 1990, when her youngest daughter Nancy, her son-in-law Richard and their unborn child were murdered in Winnetka. During the six months it took law enforcement to apprehend the killer, Bishop bore intense media attention with strength and composure, and awaited the eventual arrest and conviction of the teenager who had committed the crime.

Joyce Bishop is survived by her daughters Jennifer-Bishop Jenkins of Northfield, Jeanne Bishop of Winnetka and four grandchildren.

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