[3][4] 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.

[2] She won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play in 1954 for her portrayal of Jessie Mae Watts in Horton Foote's The Trip to Bountiful, costarring Lillian Gish and Eva Marie Saint.

'"[2] In an interview for the Los Angeles Times after her Oscar-winning performance in East of Eden, Van Fleet openly expressed her concerns "about being typecast in tragic roles".

Only age 44 at the time of Wild River, Van Fleet spent five hours every morning getting into make-up for her role as Ella, the 89-year-old matriarch of the Garth family.

Among her most emotionally charged dramatic performances on television is her portrayal of the bitter, explosive Mrs. Shrike in the 1956 episode "Shopping for Death" on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

[10] Van Fleet's final performance, a brief but "delicious" supporting turn in the 1986 TV adaptation of Saul Bellow's Seize the Day,[11] 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.

[13] 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.