| Valene Ewing | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Knots Landing and Dallas character | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Portrayed by | Joan Van Ark Vanessa Marshall (flashback) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Duration | 1978–93, 1997, 2013 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| First appearance | September 23, 1978 Reunion, Part 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last appearance | March 18, 2013 Ewings Unite! (Dallas) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Created by | David Jacobs | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spin-off appearances | Dallas (1978 series) Dallas (2012 series) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Valene "Val" Ewing (maiden name Clements, formerly Gibson, Waleska), portrayed by Joan Van Ark, is a fictional character in the CBS primetime soap opera Knots Landing, a spin-off from the long-running series Dallas, in which she also appeared. The character originated on Dallas in 1978 as the mother of Lucy Ewing and ex-wife of Gary Ewing (the second son of oil baron Jock and Miss Ellie Ewing). Van Ark made several guest appearances on Dallas before becoming one of the main stars of the spin-off Knots Landing in December 1979, though she continued to make small appearances in Dallas for the next several years. Van Ark played Valene in Knots Landing for thirteen of its fourteen seasons, which made her one of the show's longest running stars. The character made her last Knots Landing appearance in 1997, when she appeared in the reunion miniseries Knots Landing: Back to the Cul-de-Sac. In 2013, Van Ark reprised her character for the sequel version of Dallas.[1]
Valene's storyline in her first two episodes on Dallas focuses on the rebuilding of her relationship with estranged ex-husband Gary Ewing. When Valene arrives in Texas to find her daughter, Lucy Ewing, she is brought back into the drama of the Ewing family. Upon arrival, she is reunited with Gary with whom she slowly falls back in love. Once Dallas became a hit, series creator David Jacobs proceeded to launch a spin-off series titled Knots Landing, which would feature Valene and Gary prominently. The actress had strong input on how they would create her character outline. She recalled, "I remember going to wardrobe and getting a peachy pink waitress uniform, and the shoes. And then I was trying to get that Texas sound, her all important accent. And so we created her layer by layer."[2]
Van Ark received positive reviews for her portrayal of Valene, and received two Soap Opera Digest award nominations in the category "Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role on a Prime Time Serial". Greg Hernandez [who?] said, "Her character of Valene was a best-selling author, but her personal life was always a mess. She had her husband, Gary, stolen by another woman, then got pregnant by him, her twin babies were kidnapped by a crooked doctor, she was given a drug overdose at gunpoint by her ex-husband's fiancee, and she racked up enough marriages to give Elizabeth Taylor a run for her money. But she and Gary Ewing (Ted Shackelford) made for one of television's most beloved couples and the audience never stopped rooting for them to get back together."[3]