Joel Anthony Fabiani was born to an Italian-Austrian father, Ernest Fabiani, and an Irish and Native American mother, Bessie Fabiani, the youngest of three brothers.
He had an unsettled childhood, with his family moving from one place to another, attending seventeen different schools.
After joining the army and later majoring in English at Santa Rosa Junior College, Joel developed a passion for acting and attended the Actor's Workshop in San Francisco for two years.
From there, he moved to New York and began his professional career in summer stock and off-Broadway productions.
He made his Broadway debut in a revival of Beyond the Fringe '65 and started appearing on screen in 1964.
Joel's breakthrough role came as Stewart Sullivan in the TV series Department S (1969),where he played the leader of a team of Interpol agents solving complex cases.
After the show ended, he returned to the US and continued to act in various TV shows, including Dallas, Dynasty, and All My Children, as well as appearing in several made-for-TV films.
In the 1970s, Joel continued to act on the New York stage and made TV and radio commercials for Sony.
In the 1980s, he diversified into narration for audio books and worked as an announcer on Barbara Walters specials until 2003.
Joel retired from acting in 2013 and resides in New York with his current wife, Charna Greenburg.
