Jo Van Fleet

Josephine Kay Van Fleet was born in 1915 in Oakland, California, the younger of two daughters of Michigan native Roy H. Van Fleet and Indiana native Elizabeth "Bessie" Catherine (née Gardner). Her father Roy worked for the railroads, but died in 1919 of a streptococcus throat infection which was lanced, inadvertently spreading the disease throughout his body. Federal census records show that by age five Josephine, her 18-year-old sister Corinne, and their widowed mother were living in Oakland with Bessie's parents, Ralph and Mary Gardner. To help support herself and her two daughters at her parents' home, Bessie worked as a "sales lady" in an Oakland dry goods store. She moved after her graduation from her masters program to New York City, where she continued her training with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. ==Career==

In 1944, Van Fleet began her professional stage career and immediately distinguished herself in the role of Miss Phipps in the production of Uncle Harry at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. Two years later, in New York, she distinguished herself as well on Broadway by her performances as Dorcas in Shakespeare's ''The Winter's Tale; and yet again, in 1950, as Regan opposite Louis Calhern in King Lear''. Van Fleet's final performance, a brief but "delicious" supporting turn in the 1986 TV adaptation of Saul Bellow's Seize the Day, elicited this comment from Washington Post critic Tom Shales: Jo Van Fleet, who seems even to walk and blink legendarily, has a tiny part and only two small scenes as Mrs. Einhorn, an old woman with two incontinent dachshunds, but what a piquant impression she makes. ==Personal life and death==

In 1946, Van Fleet married William G. Bales, whose career in modern dance included work as a performer, choreographer, professor at Bennington College, and the founding Dean of Dance at the State University of New York at Purchase, N. Y. They remained together until his death in 1990. In February 1960, in recognition of her career in the motion-picture industry, as well as her work on stage and in television, Van Fleet was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It is located at 7010 Hollywood Boulevard. ==Filmography==