Joan Darling is an American actress, film and television director, and a dramatic arts instructor.

Darling 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 making her debut in Theodore J. Flicker's The Troublemaker (1964) and later his The President's Analyst. She went into television in the 1970s. She was a regular on the series, Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law, playing office secretary to Arthur Hill, Lee Majors, and David Soul.

Darling was nominated twice for Primetime Emmys for directing, and once for a Daytime Emmy, which she won. She was nominated two times for a Director's Guild of America award, winning one.

She also received a nomination in 1977 for a Los Angeles Area Emmy Award for her performance as Dorothy Parker in Woven in a Crazy Plaid.

Darling directed episodes of the television series Rhoda, Doc, Taxi, Hizzonner, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Magnum, P.I., Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories, and The Bionic Woman, 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.

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.