Joan van Ark was born on June 16, 1943, in New York City, far from the world of entertainment. Her life took a significant turn during her teenage years while acting in Denver, where she met actress Julie Harris, who would greatly influence her career. Julie encouraged Joan to apply to the prestigious Yale Drama School and even helped her secure a scholarship, making Joan the second woman ever to enroll there.
Joan recalled: “Harris wrote to the dean and asked him to meet me. Long story short, my parents drove me to New Haven, Connecticut, where the dean awarded me a scholarship. It felt destined”. After honing her skills in theater, Joan shifted her focus to television, where she starred in shows like Temperature’s Rising, Spider-Woman, Days of Our Lives, and even made a guest appearance on Bonanza. However, it was her role as Valene Ewing on Dallas in 1978 that propelled her to stardom.
Her success on Dallas led to her starring in its spin-off, Knots Landing, which was actually developed before Dallas. Initially, Joan was set to join the Knots Landing cast, but she ended up reprising her role on Dallas first. It was her husband, newscaster John Marshall, who encouraged her to accept the role despite her busy schedule. When it was announced that Julie Harris would play Val’s mother, Joan was thrilled. “I couldn’t believe they had picked her to be my mother”, she recalled in a 1984 interview.
After 13 seasons and 327 episodes on Knots Landing, Joan left the show just before its final season. While many speculated that her departure contributed to the show’s cancellation, she was ready for new challenges. “I loved my time on that show”, she stated, expressing gratitude to the show’s creator, David Jacobs, and her co-star, Ted Shackelford, who she considered family.
Joan and John, who met in high school, have been happily married for over 58 years and share a daughter, Vanessa Marshall, who works in the entertainment industry. Now at 81, Joan has a net worth of $10 million and remains stunning. She was last spotted five years ago, casually paying for parking in workout attire.
Her most recent appearance was in the 2017 television film Psycho Wedding Crasher. After a remarkable 50-year career in entertainment, Joan van Ark is now a life member of The Actor’s Studio, solidifying her legacy as an icon.
Denzel Washington tells it like it is, he crushed woke hollywood with powerful message
Denzel Washington tells it like it is. Though not a conservative by any stretch of the imagination, he lacks the arrog ance, vapidity, and radical leftism peculiar to Hollywood personalities. Instead, he tends to speak the truth as he sees it in a reasonabIe, rational way that’s quite unlike what’s normally associated with Hollywood.
Such was the case back in 2016 when actors were patting themselves on the back and saying that making a movie was like going to a w ar zone…yes, really. Well, Denzel demolished that lie during an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, saying “People say ‘the difficulty of making a movie.’ Well, send your son to Iraq. That’s difficuIt. It’s just a movie, relax. I don’t play that precious nonsense. Your son got shot in the face? That’s difficult. Making a movie is a luxury. It’s a gift. But don’t get it twisted, it’s just a movie.”
Denzel’s comments might have been a response to Tom Cruise, who had been somewhat misIeadingly quoted in 2013 as saying that filming a movie was brutal like a tour of duty in Afghanistan. The Hollywood Reporter was involved in that story too, reporting: Don’t underestimate the work that Cruise does. As far as he’s concerned, acting is Iike competing in the Olympics, and sometimes like fighting in Afghanistan.
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