ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, June 11, 1996 TAG: 9606110058
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
Jo Van Fleet, an award-winning stage and screen actress who played mother to Paul Newman, James Dean and Cinderella, died Monday. She was 81.
Van Fleet, who worked with equal ease in films, on stage and on television, won an Academy Award for best supporting actress in 1955 for her role as James Dean's mother in Elia Kazan's film ``East of Eden.''
Two years later, she won a Tony Award as best featured actress for her role as Jessie Mae Watts in Horton Foote's ``Trip to Bountiful.''
Over the years, Van Fleet played mother to many: She was Anthony Perkins' mother in ``Look Homeward, Angel'' on Broadway; Paul Newman's mother in the movie ``Cool Hand Luke''; and Cinderella's wicked stepmother in the 1965 television revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's ``Cinderella.''
In her first year in Hollywood, the 35-year-old actress played the mother of Susan Hayward, then 37, in the film ``I'll Cry Tomorrow.''
Some of her best performances were portrayals of women much older than herself: In Kazan's ``Wild River,'' she portrayed an 80-year-old matriarch who refuses to leave her island home that is about to be flooded by the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Van Fleet made her New York stage debut in ``The Winter's Tale'' in 1946. In 1950, she played Regan to Louis Calhern's ``King Lear.''
Her other films included ``The Rose Tattoo,'' ``Gunfight at the O.K. Corral,'' ``This Angry Age,'' and ``The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight.''
LENGTH: Short : 39 linesby CNB