Continuing, she proved a diverting love interest in the British thriller Robbery (1967) and in the French/English co-production The Night of the Generals (1967), and was one of the more interesting figures to come out of the elephantine James Bond spoof Casino Royale (1967), in which she played the fetching, exotic-dancing Mata Bond. Escorted to Hollywood, Pettet stood her ground among the other talented hopefuls such as Candice Bergen, Shirley Knight, Jessica Walter and the late Joan Hackett and Elizabeth Hartman in the glossy Ivy League film soap The Group (1966). A steady role on The Doctors (1963) daytime soap occurred around this time.

Her trek to New York to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse paid off with subsequent Broadway roles in 'Take Her, She's Mine' (debut: understudy to Elizabeth Ashley), 'The Chinese Prime Minister' and 'Poor Richard' with Alan Bates, which earned her the Theatre World Award in 1965. Her father, a British Royal Air Force pilot, was killed in WWII. Joanna Pettet was born Joanna Jane Salmon and raised in Canada. This beautiful, stylish, London-born blonde started out quite promisingly on the stage and in late 1960s films before phasing out her career in the 1990s.