Joan Van Ark rose to fame playing Valin Ewing in the television series Dallas, but above all in the spin-off Knots Landing. The actress reprised her role in 2012, appearing in one episode, and today she is happily married to her high school sweetheart, with whom she has one daughter.
Van Ark has aged, but the 78-year-old actress is still going strong. Here’s everything you need to know about Joan Van Ark’s life — and why she claims she is to blame for the collapse of Knots Landing.
Joan Van Ark was born on 16 June 1943 in New York City, one of four children of Dorothy Jean Van Ark and Carroll Van Ark. When she was 7, she moved with her family to Boulder, Colorado, and later in her career, the change of scenery helped her greatly.
Joan Van Ark — Early Life and Career
Although her parents — her mother was a writer and her father was a public relations professional — never worked in film, Van Ark knew from an early age that she wanted to be an actress.
She told We Love Soaps that when the quarterback of her school football team did not ask her to the prom, Joan decided she would work in show business.
‘It developed in Boulder. I auditioned for a play at the Community Playhouse. The quarterback of the football team didn’t ask me to the prom, and I said, “To hell with boys” — and went to audition for the play,’ Joan Van Ark recalls.
I didn’t get the part I auditioned for, but I got the part of a flower girl, and I was hooked. At the audition, I delivered a monologue, and you could hear a pin drop. They praised me so much that I said, ‘Who needs boys?’
While performing in Denver, Van Ark met actress Julie Harris, who was interviewing for a local newspaper, and she convinced her to study acting and drama at the Yale School of Drama.
As a result, Van Ark became the youngest student to receive a scholarship to this prestigious school and the second woman to be admitted. The first woman was Julie Harris, who helped Van Ark get into the school.
‘She wrote to the dean and asked him to meet with me. Long story short, my parents drove me to New Haven, Connecticut, to meet with the dean, who awarded me a scholarship,’ she recalls. ‘It was meant to be.’
Valin Ewing in the television series Dallas and Airplane
Van Ark began her professional career at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, where she played the lead role in Molière’s play The Miser. After working for about a year at the Arena Stage in Washington, she joined the national touring company of Barefoot in the Park in 1963, which led to her Broadway debut. In 1971, she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play after starring in The School for Wives.
By this point, Joan Van Ark had begun working in front of the camera rather than on stage. She appeared in television series such as The Heat Is On, Spider-Woman, Days of Our Lives, and even in an episode of Bonanza.
Although Joan Van Ark had no shortage of work, by the early 1980s she was still searching for her big break. In 1978, she appeared several times as Valen Ewing in the series Dallas, which led her to the role of a lifetime.
Knots Landing, a spin-off of Dallas, premiered in 1979, and Joan Van Ark reprised her role as Valen Ewing. She appeared in 327 episodes — alongside Michelle Lee as Karen and Ted Shackleford as Gary — and became a mass star.
Although the series was a spin-off of Dallas — about the corrupt but wealthy Ewing clan — it was originally moved to CBS a few years earlier.
However, the network needed a series about a ‘big, rich family,’ and Dallas was chosen. But later, when the studio realised how big Dallas had become, Knots Landing became a huge success and made it into the top 20 in the television ratings in just one season.
How Joan Van Ark almost missed out on her biggest role
Knots Landing became the story of Gary Ewing and his wife Valyn, played by Van Ark, and how they decided to start a new life in Knots Landing.
However, Van Ark almost missed out on the role of Valin Ewing. She explained that she had a ‘three-way collision’ when she was filming Love Boat and doing commercials in New York at the same time.
In the end, it was her husband, John Marshall, whom we will return to in a moment, who convinced her to choose Dallas. And it was an important — and very important — decision.
I got a call offering me a guest role on Dallas, which was creating a lot of buzz, but I said to my husband, “John, why should I even read the script? I can’t be in three places at once,”” she told the Express. He read it and said, ‘No, you have to do it. It looks great.’
“So he talked me into making a schedule where I was in Los Angeles for one day, then flew to Dallas for two days, then two days in New York and back to Texas. But looking at this old photo of the cast of Knots Landing — a spin-off of Dallas — I’m so glad I listened to him,” she added.