Joan Martha Van Ark (born June 16, 1943) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Valene Ewing on the primetime soap opera Knots Landing. A life member of The Actors Studio, she made her Broadway debut in 1966 in Barefoot in the Park. In 1971, she received a Theatre World Award and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for the revival of The School for Wives.
In 1978, Van Ark landed her most famous role of Valene Ewing. The character first appeared on the CBS series Dallas, then was a leading character for 13 seasons on its spin-off Knots Landing (1979–92). For her performance on Knots Landing, she won the Soap Opera Digest Award for Best Actress in 1986 and 1989. She left the show in 1992, although she returned for the series' final two episodes in 1993 as well as the 1997 miniseries Knots Landing: Back to the Cul-de-Sac. In 1985, she received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination as host of the Tournament of Roses Parade on CBS. From 2004 to 2005, she starred in the soap opera The Young and the Restless. She reprised her role of Valene in an episode of the new Dallas series in 2013.
Joan Martha Van Ark was born on June 16, 1943, in New York City to Dorothy Jean Van Ark (née Hemenway) (1917–1983) and Carroll Clement Van Ark (1897–1972). Van Ark's father was an advertiser and public relations consultant, photographer and contributor to periodicals such as Collier's and The New Yorker. Carroll Van Ark's paternal grandfather Gradus was an immigrant from The Netherlands who settled in Holland, Michigan. Both of Van Ark's parents were also writers. After 1952, Van Ark grew up in Boulder, Colorado, with three siblings: Carol, Mark and Dexter.
"My dad was in PR in Denver. When I was 16, he arranged for her (Julie Harris) to speak with me. She ended up calling the dean of the Yale School of Drama, who agreed to meet with me. I became the second woman after Julie to be admitted when it was all men." - Joan Van Ark
At age 15 as a student reporter, Van Ark met and interviewed actress Julie Harris, who recommended that Van Ark apply to the Yale School of Drama, which Harris had attended in her early twenties. Van Ark followed in Harris' footsteps and went to Yale Drama on a scholarship. In 1964, Van Ark was one of the few acceptees to attend the Yale graduate program without first having earned an undergraduate degree. Van Ark was also reportedly the only female student on campus at the time. She attended for only one year. Years later, Harris appeared on Knots Landing as Lilimae Clements, the mother of Valene Ewing, Van Ark's character.
After Harris died in 2013, Van Ark announced at a Broadway memorial service the creation of the Julie Harris Scholarship, which provides annual support to an actor studying at the Yale Drama School. Alec Baldwin, who played Harris' son and Van Ark's brother on Knots Landing, made the first contribution. In 2021, Yale Drama became tuition-free and was rebranded the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University.
Van Ark began her professional career at the Guthrie Theater in Molière's The Miser and appeared 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., she originated the role of Corie in the national touring company of Barefoot in the Park, directed by Mike Nichols. In 1966, she recreated the role at the Piccadilly Circus in the critically acclaimed London Company when she replaced Marlo Thomas, who had pulled out due to a ligament injury; and later that same year, Van Ark made her Broadway debut as Corie at the Biltmore Theater and became one of the successors of Elizabeth Ashley, who three years earlier had appeared in the original Broadway production.
Van Ark and her new husband moved to Los Angeles, where she started garnering television credits. In 1971, she revisited Broadway, where she earned a Theatre World Award and received a Tony nomination (Best Featured Actress in a Play) for her performance as Agnès in Molière's The School for Wives, directed by Stephen Porter.
Van Ark starred opposite Ray Milland and Sam Elliott in the horror film Frogs, which was theatrically released on March 10, 1972.
After receiving a contract with Universal Studios, Van Ark co-starred with Bette Davis in The Judge and Jake Wyler, a 1972 two-hour telefilm and series pilot that failed to be picked up by NBC.Van Ark played the role of Erika in M*A*S*H in 1973 in the episode entitled "Radar's Report,” in which she rejects the prospect of marriage to Hawkeye (Alan Alda). Van Ark was also a regular cast member of the short-lived television sitcoms Temperatures Rising (1972–73) and We've Got Each Other (1977–78).
In 1974, Van Ark, tapped as a late replacement for Mary Ure, returned to Broadway as Silia Gala in a revival of Pirandello's The Rules of the Game, which was performed by the New Phoenix Repertory Co. at the Helen Hayes Theater and also featured Glenn Close, who, in addition to playing a bit part as a neighbor, served as Van Ark's understudy in the lead role of Silia. Game reunited Van Ark with School for Wives director Stephen Porter as well as Wives co-star David Dukes. In 1975, a production of Game was also broadcast on Great Performances as one of its Theatre in America selections.
Van Ark co-starred opposite Richard Boone in the science fiction outing The Last Dinosaur, which was filmed at Tsuburaya Studios in Tokyo and on location in the Japanese Alps. The picture was intended to be released theatrically but failed to find a distributor and instead aired as a TV movie in February 1977.
In addition, Van Ark performed the voice of Spider-Woman in the short-lived 1979 animated series of the same name.
After working for several years in a variety of guest roles on television, in 1978, she gained her best-known role as Valene Ewing (originally as a one-time appearance) on Dallas. Van Ark kept a tight schedule and was flying a lot the week of her Dallas debut, as Dallas was being filmed in Texas and she was simultaneously shooting an episode of The Love Boat in L.A. and doing voiceover work for Estée Lauder in New York.
However, writers later worked the character into a couple of additional episodes; and in 1979, Van Ark then carried the Valene character over into the long-running spin-off, Knots Landing, in which she co-starred for thirteen of the show's fourteen seasons. She left in 1992, although she did return for its final two episodes in May 1993. Her character was married three times to husband Gary Ewing, played in the series by Ted Shackelford; and during the show's run, also had two other marriages: to Ben Gibson (Doug Sheehan) and Danny Waleska (Sam Behrens).
During her thirteen years on Knots Landing, Van Ark earned two Soap Opera Digest Awards for Best Actress (1986, 1989) and was nominated an additional six times. Over the course of the program, Van Ark probably received her greatest recognition as an actress during the sixth year, which featured an intricate storyline involving the theft of Valene's twin babies. Their disappearance (and alleged stillborn deaths) provoked Valene to embark on a surreal spiritual journey and pilgrimage in which she left the cul-de-sac in California and morphed into the persona of a character from a novel she had written.
"The face-washing scene was an example of when I felt [a scene] couldn't have gone better. It was everything we were all after. It became a monologue where I felt Valene should change and the audience should go with her on that journey. Of all the things I've ever done, I feel that that scene where Val washed her face was the deepest one. It was so rich. There was a combination of the cameraman, the writers, the producers, the director — they all allowed me that monologue in the mirror. We saw Valene become Verna right in front of our eyes." - Joan Van Ark
This dark, harrowing story earned Knots Landing its only placement ever on Nielsen's annual Top 10 programs list. In the 1984–1985 season finale, "The Long and Winding Road," Val finds out that her babies are still alive, and this episode's original broadcast on May 23, 1985, also marked the only time Knots Landing ever reached the #1 spot in the weekly Nielsen ratings. In its edition dated June 29, 1985, TV Guide assessed of her performance: "Knots Landing has the grimmest plots but the strongest cast, headed by the incomparable Joan Van Ark as Valene." Later on, she directed two of the series' episodes, one in the last season after she was no longer a regular performer on the serial.