JO VAN FLEET

The magnificent Jo Van Fleet, whose piercing glance and twisted smile brought a series of memorable mother characters to life on stage and screen, died in New York on June 10th 1996, at the age of 81. Van Fleet won an Oscar in 1955 for Best Supporting Actress in "East of Eden", playing Kate who, when son Cal tells her he's heard she's a good business- woman, nods and chuckles as she pulls off her buttoned kid gloves, "One of the best, son." Two years earlier, she won a Tony Award as best supporting actress for her role as Jessie Mae Watts in Horton Foote's "Trip to Bountiful.''

Van Fleet was memorable wherever she appeared--- as the tremulous, ambitious mother of Lilian Roth (played by Susan Hayward) in the film "I'll Cry Tomorrow'', as Arletta, the ailing mother of Cool Hand Luke, propped up with pillows and chain smoking in the back of the ute, muttering "Ya know, sometimes, I wish that people was like dawgs, Luke" or as the wizened matriach refusing to leave her island home in "Wild River". Van Fleet was married to William Bales, a dancer and choreographer, who died in 1990. She is survived by a son, Michael, and a grandson, Arden Rogow-Bales, born on November 14, 1988.

She unknowingly left us her own best epitaph: "One of the best".