Joan Van Ark
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Joan Van Ark (born June 16, 1943 in New York, New York, sometime credited as Joan Van Arc) is an actress who is best known for playing Larry Hagman's troubling sister-in-law and Michele Lee's neighbor and best friend, Valene (Val) Clements Ewing Gibson Waleska Ewing on the CBS primetime soap operas Dallas (1978-1981) and Knots Landing from 1979 to 1992. The role originated in a guest appearance on Dallas, from which Knots Landing is a spin-off.
She won the Soap Opera Digest Award for "Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role: Prime Time" for the part in 1986. She was nominated for the same award in 1988 and 1991.
She began her acting career after graduating from university by understudying for Glenn Close on Broadway. Many years later she appeared Off-Broadway in the role temporarily vacated by Marian Seldes (who was shooting a film) in Edward Albee's play, Three Tall Women.
She also originated the role of "Gloria Fisher Abbott" on the soap opera The Young and the Restless from 2004 to 2005.
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[edit] Other noteworthy roles
[edit] M*A*S*H
Joan Van Ark was 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.
[edit] Rhoda
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.
[edit] Family
Joan Van Ark and her husband (since 1968) John Marshall have one child, voice actress/performer Vanessa Marshall, who was born in 1970.
[edit] Trivia
- In Dutch, her name is literally "Joan of Ark."
[edit] External links
Categories: 1943 births | Living people | American people | American character actors | American soap opera actors | Dallas (TV series) actors | Gunsmoke actors | Knots Landing actors | M*A*S*H actors | People from New York City | People from the Greater Los Angeles Area | Soap Opera Digest Award winners
