Jo Van Fleet

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Catherine Josephine "Jo" Van Fleet (born December 30, 1914 in Oakland , California - † June 10, 1996 in New York City , New York ) was an American actress .

Life

Born in Oakland, California, the young actress Jo Van Fleet was promoted by Uta Hagen and Sanford Meisner . Her first Broadway -Pulley she played in 1946 in Shakespeare -Stück The Winter's Tale . In the following years she was able to draw attention to herself with dramatic roles in other plays. In 1954, she received a Tony Award for Best Supporting Actress for her appearance in Horton Foote's The Trip to Bountiful . Director Elia Kazan , with whom she had also worked at the theater, cast her in 1955 in his film Jenseits von Eden at the side of James Dean as his mother - a wealthy but internally depraved and lonely prostitute. This film debut earned her the Oscar for best supporting actress in 1956 .

In the following years, Jo Van Fleet rarely appeared in movies, exceptions were the drama The Tattooed Rose (1955) and the Western Zwei aufget (1957). In 1958 she was nominated again for the Tony Award , this time for Best Actress , for her role as mother of Anthony Perkins in Look Homeward, Angel . In general, maternal roles, both good-natured and malicious, were her specialty. The actress stood out in unusual roles such as Elia Kazan's Wilder Strom (1960), where Van Fleet, in her mid-forties, played an over 80-year-old woman who is to be evicted from her land by Montgomery Clift because of a river diversion. She had one of her late film roles as the mother of Paul Newman in the classic film The Unyielding . Since the film offers for Van Fleet in Hollywood were rather unsatisfactory despite her reputation, she concentrated in later years mainly on her theater work.

The actress was married to dancer William Bales from 1946 until his death in 1990. The couple had a son. Jo Van Fleet died in 1996 at the age of 80 and was buried in Flushing Cemetery, Queens . She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her film work.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Commons : Jo Van Fleet  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Date of birth follows the date stated in the Social Security Death Index (SSDI)
  2. ^ Obituary in the New York Times
  3. ^ Obituary for Jo Van Fleet at the Independent
  4. ^ Obituary for Jo Van Fleet at the Independent
personal data
SURNAME Van Fleet, Jo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Van Fleet, Catherine Josephine (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-american actress
DATE OF BIRTH December 30, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Oakland , California , United States
DATE OF DEATH June 10, 1996
Place of death New York , New York , United States