Joan Van Ark
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Joan Van Ark | |
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 Joan Van Ark, January 2007 |
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| Born | June 16, 1943 New York, New York U.S. |
Joan Van Ark (born June 16, 1943) is an American actress, most notable in character-type roles. The naturally blonde-headed Van Ark is perhaps best known for playing the character of Valene Clements Ewing, beginning on Dallas, and then on the spin-off series, Knots Landing, playing the character of Michele Lee's best friend and neighbor.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Van Ark was born in New York City, New York, the daughter of Dorothy Jean (née Hemenway), a writer, and Carroll Van Ark, who was born in Holland, Michigan and worked in advertising and public relations.[1][2] Her father named her after Joan of Arc because he was certain that she would become famous.[3] Van Ark's paternal great-grandfather, Gradus, was an immigrant from the Netherlands.[4] Both Van Ark's parents and her sister, Carol, were all writers.[5] She grew up in Boulder, Colorado and also has a brother, Mark. Van Ark, just out of high school (1961), was the second youngest student to attend the Yale School of Drama on a scholarship. The youngest was Julie Harris. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. Years later, they would co-star on the CBS Television series, Knots Landing.
[edit] Career
Van Ark began her professional career at the Guthrie Theater in Molière's The Miser, opposite Hume Cronyn and Zoe Caldwell. That was followed by Death of a Salesman at the Guthrie with both Cronyn and Jessica Tandy. After a season at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., Joan was cast in the national touring company of Barefoot in the Park, directed by Mike Nichols. She recreated the role in the critically acclaimed London Company and later on Broadway. She earned a Tony nomination for her performance in The School for Wives, and won the Theater World Award for The Rules of the Game.
After receiving a contract with Universal Studios, Van Ark co-starred with Bette Davis in The Judge and Jake Wyler, a 1972 television pilot that failed to be picked up by NBC. She accepted the her best-known role as Valene Ewing (originally as a one-time guest appearance on Dallas) in 1978. However, writers later worked the character into a couple of additional episodes; she then carried the character over into the long-running spin-off Knots Landing in 1979. She remained with Knots Landing for thirteen of the show's fourteen seasons, leaving at the beginning of the last season in 1992 (although she did return for the series' final episode in May 1993). During the thirteen seasons on Knots Landing as Val, Van Ark earned six nominations and two Soap Opera Digest Awards for Best Actress. During the series' run, Van Ark became best friends with series' lead Michele Lee, mirroring their characters' on-screen relationship. Van Ark also starred in the TV comedies, Temperature Rising and We've Got Each Other. She was also the voice of Spider-Woman in the animated series of the same name. After playing Val, she starred in an ill-fated pilot called Spin Doctors, a sitcom for NBC that did not sell. In May 1997, she reprised her role of Valene in the CBS mini-series, Knots Landing Reunion: Back to the Cul-de-sac, while in December 2005, Van Ark appeared in a second reunion with the other cast members of the long running CBS television hit. In addition, she originated the role of Gloria Fisher/Abbott on CBS television's The Young and the Restless from 2004 - 2005, then decided to leave the role and was replaced by Judith Chapman.
Van Ark also appeared off-Broadway opposite John Rubenstein in Love Letters. More recently, she co-starred in the New York production of Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize winning play Three Tall Women. Her Los Angeles theater credits include Cyrano de Bergerac - playing Roxanne opposite Richard Chamberlain's Cyrano - Ring Around the Moon with Michael York and Glynis Johns, Chemin de Fer, Heartbreak House, and As You Like It, for which she won a Los Angeles Drama Critics Award. She also appeared as Lady Macbeth in the Grove Shakespeare Festival's production of Macbeth.
Van Ark has also starred in the Williamstown Theater Festival productions of The Night of the Iguana, The Legend of Oedipus, and the festival's 40th anniversary production of Steven Sondheim's A Little Night Music.
Van Ark also featured in an episode of M*A*S*H, where she played Erika, a nurse working with Captain Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda). When a Communist soldier brought in with other casualties grabbed a surgical knife and held the hospital at bay, her character was slashed in the hand. Throughout the episode, she developed a relationship with Hawkeye. Van Ark guest starred in an early episode of Rhoda, playing Joe Gerard's (Rhoda Morgenstern's then-fiance) glamorous looking, seemingly perfect ex-wife. In the episode, Rhoda and her mother, Ida (Nancy Walker), stop by (the former) Mrs. Gerard's house to pick up Joe's son, and Ida - as only Ida could, seeing how insecure Rhoda feels in the presence of Mrs. Gerard - succeeds in puncturing the woman's "perfect" facade.
Van Ark also appeared in an episode of Wonder Woman with Ted Shackleford.
In 2001, Van Ark was featured in an episode of the Howard Stern-produced show Son of the Beach as Ima Cummings, the mother of show regular BJ Cummings (played by Jaime Bergman). The episode aired in April of that year.
[edit] Personal life
Joan Van Ark has been married to husband John Marshall since 1966. They have one child, voice actress/performer Vanessa Marshall (born October 19, 1969). Her name means literally "Joan of Ark" in Dutch.[6]
