She was part of “Knots Landing” for 13 seasons before she decided to leave the show.

Actress Joan Van Ark has had a long and very successful career in Hollywood but it is her role of Valene Ewing on the primetime soap opera Knots Landing that helped her made a name for herself and cement her place in the film industry.

Born on June 16, 1943, in New York City, New York, to parents who were not in any way related to television, Joan always knew she belonged in Hollywood. She started performing when she was still very young and during a performance in Denver she met the person who would influence her life and career a great deal, actress Julie Harris. It was Harris who persuaded Joan to attend the well-respected Yale Drama School. She even helped her get a scholarship, making Joan the second woman to enroll into the school at the time.

“She [Harris] wrote to the dean and asked him to meet me. Long story short, my parents drove me to New Haven, Connecticut, to meet the dean, who gave me a scholarship,” Joan recalled.” It was meant to be.”

After being part of the theater for some years, Joan turned to television. She appeared on television series including Temperature’s Rising, Spider-Woman, and Days of Our Lives and even in one episode of Bonanza. Then, in 1978, she made several appearances as Valene Ewing on Dallas, which later turned into the most significant role she has ever played. As Dallas became a huge hit, the network decided to film its spin-off Knots Landing in which Joan reprised her role of Valene Ewing. In fact, Knots Landing was written before Dallas, but as producers needed to decided which show to work on they chose Dallas because they wanted a “big rich family” show.

Joan was a leading character for 13 seasons in Knots Landing and it was her husband who persuaded her to accept the role. At the time she was offered to be part of the series, Joan was already working on two other projects.

At one point, when the character of Valene Ewing’s mother was about to be introduced to the show, Joan could never imagine the role of her TV mother would be given to the person who meant the world to her; none other than Julie Harris.

“When the producers told me they had finally last someone to play my mother, I held my breath,” she recalled in a 1984 interview with Florida Today.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, are they going to say Phyllis Diller or Zsa Zsa Gabor, or who?’ Then they said it was Julie Harris, and I went right through the roof. I couldn’t believe they had picked her to be my mother. They didn’t even know we were friends.”

After 13 seasons and 327 episodes, Joan left Knots Landing and the show was canceled a season later. Joan was aware she was the one to be blamed for the cancellation, but she though she needed to try on new challenges.

“I have loved more than life the 13 years I’ve had on that show,” she said. “[Knots Landing creator] David Jacobs is a great influence on my life, has taught me so much about so many things. Ted [Shackelford] is the other half of every breath I take on the show, and personally, he’s a large part of my heart. The people are my family–we have shared marriages, deaths, divorces. It’s far more difficult to leave than I thought.”

Joan appeared in a number of others series, including The Young and The Restless in which she portrayed the role of Gloria Fisher.

What could be more beautiful than pregnancy?

However, pregnancy can be stressful because parents think that all they want for their baby is to be healthy.

A young couple was expecting their first child to be born.

They already knew they would call him Brody.Unfortunately, the ultrasound told them that there were complications and that maybe it would be better to have an abortion.

The parents, Sara and Chris, found out that the baby had a bilateral cleft lip and palate, and this could cause him health problems.

However, the two did not consider the option of aborting.

His parents have decided that they want Brody to be born, and they will help him get over any problems and be with him.

They also decided that they would help other parents to realize that a child is a blessing and that they should be proud of their child regardless of the situation.

Fortunately, Brody’s condition didn’t require extra care. Cleft lips and palates can make everyday life difficult, as it can be more difficult to eat, drink or even breathe.

At the moment, doctors do not know the exact cause of cleft lips and palates. According to enters for Disease Control and Prevention, in the United States about 2600-2700 children are born annually with a cleft lip and 4450 children are born with cleft lip with or without the cleft palate.

Several people wrote to Sarah to laugh at her baby, but the mother was very strong and used all these messages to show other parents who are facing similar problems that everything is fine and everything will be fine. We must not listen to what bad people say.

Sara said that she is not affected by the malicious messages and that this is how Brody wants her to be. She wants her son to help the children who are facing the same problem as him and to show them that everything will be fine!

Although Sara received many negative messages, she also received a lot of encouragement and kindness from people. The mother also said that one day she was in a restaurant and a man offered her $ 1,000 to help Brody.

Brody’s parents set aside some money to help their son get the surgery he needed.

Fortunately, Brody managed to have surgery, and now he is fully recovered! The parents think that maybe Brody will need other surgeries, but so far they are very satisfied with the results obtained.

Sara and Chris said they received a lot of support from the cleft community. Many people prayed for Brody and his health.

Isaiah Acosta was born in 1999 with a rare condition known as situs inversus. He doesn’t have a jaw, so he cannot eat or speak.

He struggled to live and doctors believed that he won’t live long; Isaiah is over 20 years now and he’s living a healthy life and making other people’s lives better.

Isaiah Acosta is a better example of don’t give up, even when people say no, always say yes.

Isaiah was born two weeks before his due birth and was deprived of oxygen 15 minutes after birth.

He was born without a Jaw and no one expected him to live with that, but Isaiah has lived up to his expectations and made waves in music.

His mother Tarah, calls him her miracle son, and after being born 2 weeks before his due date, she knew something was wrong with her little boy.

“Everything in his body is a mirror image flipped backward. His stomach, his heart, I mean everything.”

The doctors said he wasn’t going to live, but Tarah didn’t want to take chances with her boy. She was connected to him and that was all that mattered.

She told NPR, ”I didn’t see you as the baby with no jaw, and all the tubes and wires breathing for you. I just saw you, and you were my baby. We told the doctors to keep working on you and you kept fighting to be here.”

Isaiah didn’t let his condition be a disability on his path. He always manages to bring smiles to people’s faces, even in school he has proven to be a better person.

His “favorite teacher,” Chris said, “Isaiah comes to school every day energetic and ready to interact, he wraps his community together, people want to know his story, they want to be around him.”

Isaiah is involved with the community service and is also part of the music industry.

He hasn’t tasted food all his life and is fed from a tube six times a day as he doesn’t have a lower jaw or upper jaw airways.

He can’t breathe either and gets sick more frequently than normal.

He doesn’t speak and only communicates through gestures and writes songs as well.

Rapper Patterson who died in January 2019 due to pancreatic cancer was the first to voice Isaiah’s rap.

He had told Isaiah, “You should always rise to be able to do what you want to do and never let the opinions of others hold you back from achieving your goals.”

The story of little Brenna is a story of overcoming any possible obstacles – and is also a reminder of how a parent’s love is unconditional.

There are moms and dads out there who give up on their children – just because they look different.

That’s why it’s so important that we bring inspirational stories to peoples’ attention, stories where parents and children show that no challenge is too big, as long as you stick together.

It’s also an important lesson to any of us who have ever judged anyone based on their appearance.

Courtney and Evan Westlake were happily living their life with their son Connor when they discovered that Courtney was pregnant again.

Of course the couple was thrilled when they realised that their family was going to expand.

Like any other expectant parents, they were looking forward to their first ultrasound.

Every time they left the hospital, the doctors assured them that everything looked great with their growing child.

A few months into the pregnancy, Courtney and Evan found out that they were expecting a girl: Connor was going to have a little sister!

The couple were overjoyed and began imagining everything that a little girl would bring to their family.

“I’ll have to learn to braid hair now,” laughed dad Evan.

The big day came just a few weeks before New Year’s Eve. The little girl was born – but all the couple’s plans of introducing the little girl to her new home were crushed.

Their daughter Brenna was born covered in a thick white scales. She wasn’t moving, had an extremely high body temperature and her whole body was covered in sores.

Brenna needed intensive care immediately – otherwise she wouldn’t survive.

Courtney and Evan were only able to hold their daughter for the first time two weeks after her birth.

They found out that Brenna had been born with a serious hereditary disease called Harlequin ichthyosis. The disease causes Brenna’s body to make skin 10 times too fast.

It causes redness all over her body, and also affects her eyes, mouth, nose and ears.

The disease is untreatable and is often fatal.

With all the physical challenges that come with Harlekin ichthyosis, the parents knew they had a tough road ahead of them.

Courtney often comes across strangers who point, make loud comments or ask insensitive questions when she’s out with Brenna.

It makes her sad. She can understand that children are curious about Brenna, since she has such a unique appearance.

But what really upsets Courtney is the reactions she gets from many parents. They pull their children away from Brenna as soon as they see her and tell their children to keep quiet when they get close to her.

Courtney would prefer that parents come up and talk to her and Brenna, instead of looking away and leaving the playground.

At the same time, Brenna is a proud and confident little girl, who doesn’t let anyone bring her down. She’s confident in herself, thanks to all the support from her family.

Especially from big brother Connor, who really worships his little sister.

“Why do parents try to avoid talking to people who look different? What are they afraid of? They could just come up to me and ask how old Brenna is,” Courney says, and continues:

“When their child asks why Brenna is so red and swollen, why can’t they just be honest and say ‘I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter how we look. We’re all unique’?”

Despite their challenging days, Evan, Courtney and Connor are proud of their little fighter – with good reason.

Every evening, dad Evan bathes his daughter, which needs to be done carefully and methodically every day.

The same man who was joking about braiding her daughter’s hair now massages her very carefully but steadily with a cloth to wash away scaly skin.

The disease also means that Brenna doesn’t have a lot of hair, but every day her dad carefully combs the hair she does have.

And in most ways, Brenna is just like any other child. She loves her family, playing and listening to bedtime stories with her dad and big brother.

Her parents are convinced that Brenna can do whatever she wants in life, even though life hasn’t turned out exactly the way they planned.

Courtney now writes regularly about her family’s life on her blog, Blessed by Brenna, and she’s also written a book, A Different Beautiful, which was published in August 2016.

The family hopes that their open and emotional story can help others to understand and appreciate people who look different.

And isn’t Brenna beautiful just the way she is.

Please share Brenna’s inspiraional story to help her and her family spread awareness of her illness.

Together we can ensure that all children have a happy upbringing, free from prejudice.

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David and Kate wanted to have a baby for 3 years, and after that expectation the miracle happened, and Kate found out she was pregnant with twins.

Fortunately, the pregnancy went very well, there were no problems. However, something happened when Kate went into labor.

She gave birth to two wonderful children 2 minutes away: Jamie and Emily. Unfortunately, the doctor told them that Jamie did not survive, although they did their best to save him. However, the parents could not accept this, they were devastated.

Kate and David wanted to hold their boy in their arms to keep his body warm. They could not accept that doctors could do nothing for their baby. Kate was the one who made this decision and she told her husband to go get the baby. There were 20 people in the room who were worried about what was happening.

What happened next can be considered a true miracle! After Jamie reached his mother’s arms, he began to move and his breathing grew stronger, a sign that he was trying to fight for his life even though he was just born. The doctors were very surprised, but they mobilized and acted immediately to help the family. Parents and doctors worked together to save Jamie and they succeeded!

Jamie is currently 7 years old and a very loved and happy child. He really likes to tell his friends that he was dead a long time ago, but he is resurrected. probably his new friends are very curious to find out what happened!

Jamie’s mother said that the doctor told her that Jamie did not survive, but she noticed that her baby seemed to be trying to breathe, so she decided to take Jamie in her arms to warm him up. He was very cold and she thought she would help her baby if she warmed him up. She also said that she and her husband had been trying to have a baby for years, so she couldn’t give up on Jamie so easily. She and her husband took off their T-shirts to keep Jamie warm.

Kate knows this may have sounded stupid to doctors since they thought there was no hope, and the baby was dead. However, Kate’s decision was definitely the best decision she ever made!

Kate said she noticed at one point that her son was beginning to take a deep breath. Then they knew there was great hope for him to recover, and then Jamie opened his eyes and began to breathe. The parents are very happy that they have chosen to have hope and confidence in their own instinct.

The twins found out this story when they were 5 years old, and Emily started crying when she heard how much her brother had to go through. Since then the twins get along much better, play very often together and are happy to have each other forever!

We can certainly learn from this family story that we must always trust our instincts and act as we think is best. We may not succeed at times, but it is best to try and not regret that we could have done more in a given situation.

Every parent-to-be wishes for their little bundle of joy to be born healthy and have a happy childhood. Unfortunately, Paul and Rebecca Callaghan weren’t that lucky.
Their daughter had experienced problems while in the womb and had to be delivered prematurely. Sadly, neither the doctors nor the parents were aware of the severity of the baby’s health condition until she was welcomed into the world.

Little Matilda Rose Callaghan has gone through so much during her life and she’s still struggling. But she’s one brave girl who has loving parents by her side.

The moment Matilda was born, doctors noticed her face was covered in dark blue and red marks. Initially, they thought those were just bruises she sustained during birth, but that wasn’t the case. Those marks were something way more serious and were not about to fade away.

During the first days of her life, Matilda had to undergo various surgeries. She even stopped breathing twice and medics had to revive her. Eventually, they learned that the marks on her face were a result of the baby’s Trachea Oesophageal Fistula (TOF) and Sturge Weber Syndrome. This syndrome is a neurological disorder characterized by distinctive port-wine stains on the forehead, scalp, or around the eye caused by an overabundance of capillaries near the surface of the skin.

Sadly, having these conditions meant Matilda would experience glaucoma, seizures, weakness on the left side of her body and even learning disabilities.
In order for her birthmarks not to spread and affect the brain or other organs, they had to be treated with laser treatments.

The treatments that Matilda has to undergo until she’s 16 years old leave polka dot marks on her face. They fade away after around three weeks but since she receives laser treatments every two months, her face is most of the time covered in dots.

Whenever she’s out with her parents, strangers stare at her and make her and her parents feel uncomfortable mostly because they believe the marks are a result of beating and abuse.

The Callaghans are left heartbroken whenever people make fun of their daughter. They know that she’s way too young to be aware of her condition but fear that her self-confidence would be greatly affected as she grows older.

Matilda’s father wants people to know the truth behind his daughter appearance and says, “They just see what is in front of them and jump to hurtful conclusions. I wish they could see past the birthmark and see what a wonderful little angel she is.”

Matilda is unable to walk on her own and has difficulties communicating, but her parents do their best to provide her with the best life she can get. They love her to the moon and back and are there to fight her battle with her.

They share her story because they want people to be aware of the obstacles they are trying to overcome every single day.

For some of us, falling pregnant can take years of planning and trying. For others, it can happen unexpectedly in the blink of an eye.

One of the wonders of life is that it’s so unpredictable; we just never know when one of our family members or friends will become pregnant.

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Hollie Walls wasn’t expecting to have a baby. Given that doctors had told her she would need fertility medication, she was shocked to learn that she was pregnant. Hollie had undergone two surgeries the previous year to remove a large mass from her uterus, leaving her skeptical about her chances of conceiving.

Hollie already had two sons from a previous marriage, but her and her current husband wanted to add to their family.

As she explained to Love What Matters: “I got pregnant almost immediately and even though I am very well aware we were participating in acts that could lead to a child, I was still incredibly shocked to find out I was actually pregnant. I remember seeing two lines on the pregnancy test and thinking, ‘It must be a faulty test, there’s no way I could naturally fall pregnant.’

“I didn’t even want to tell my husband at first because I was sure it would just be another disappointment and we had been through too many of those.”

Hollie’s pregnancy was uneventful up until 39 weeks. Every ultrasound and doctor visit had been perfect, she was measuring on time and her blood pressure was great.

Her due date came and went, but she wasn’t anxious as both of her previous children had been born late.

“When I was 41 weeks pregnant, I went to my final OB visit to schedule my induction as it appeared this baby wasn’t going to come on her own,” Hollie explained, as per Love What Matters. “The OB took my blood pressure, checked my urine and gave me a quick ultrasound at the clinic to make sure everything still looked fine.

“When it came time to do the ultrasound, I could tell by the look on his face that it wasn’t good news. ‘I can’t find any amniotic fluid,’ he said. My heart sunk. I didn’t have any signs that something was wrong so I was completely shocked.”

Hollie was soon diagnosed with Oligohydramnios, a condition she had never heard of before then.

She said: “I left the OB’s office and went immediately to the hospital (it was a Friday) and they ran a bunch of tests and I had another ultrasound. The second ultrasound showed that I did have very low amniotic fluid but they were able to locate some fluid pockets which was such a relief.

“The baby was really healthy on the monitor and had a great heartbeat and I was experiencing lots of movement, so I was booked in for an induction for the following Monday.

“I woke up Sunday morning and something just didn’t feel right. The baby was moving but the movements felt different, like they were slower. To this day I can’t explain it. I put it down to mother’s intuition. I just knew I had to go to the hospital urgently. I called my doula and she said she would meet me there within the hour. I wanted to be excited about meeting my baby but I was so worried.”

When Hollie got to the hospital, she went straight through to triage. She lay on a bed as a nurse offered small talk, but even so she could sense the worry in the room.

“People came in and out of the room and asked me questions about the pregnancy, the movements I was feeling, etc. The next thing I saw, a nurse hit the emergency button and an alarm started going off and before I could even grasp what was happening, close to 10 people were in the room with me.

“The baby’s heart rate was dropping and then accelerating, and it was decided that a c-section was the only safe way to get her out and it had to be done NOW. I had people working frantically to try and get an IV line in me, I had other people trying to get me in to a position to get her heart rate to stabilize, I had someone else bringing me paperwork to sign.

“Finally, an OB came in to talk to me about the possibility of my baby being brain dead due to her heart rate and what to expect from my c-section. They got the baby’s heart rate back into the normal range and immediately wheeled me off to the OR. I didn’t have time to talk to my husband – I was so scared.“

Once Hollie’s baby was delivered via C-section, she heard her cry. “All I could think was, ‘She is so tiny.’ I remember looking at her thinking I had never seen a baby so small, but thankfully she was healthy!“

Hollie was able to give her skin to skin almost immediately. She named her Winter Josephine.

“Once we got out of recovery and back to our hospital room, I just held Winter in front of me and stared at her. As perfect as she was, I couldn’t help but laugh because she looked so angry.

“If I had to guess what she was thinking at that very point in time, it would have been, ‘I was comfortable in there. Put me back!’ Everyone that saw her said the exact same thing. ‘She looks so mad!’ When my husband and sons came in to meet her, she just stared at them with tensed eyebrows that showed she was incredibly inconvenienced by us.”

It wasn’t until two weeks after Winter was born that Hollie realized just how dangerous Oligohydramnios can be. While looking for a newborn photographer she spoke with a volunteer who also went to hospitals to take photos of angel babies for grieving families.

Hollie told her about Winter being born with no amniotic fluid and the photographer replied that a lot of the angel babies she encountered came as a result of that same issue.

Winter may look like she’s always got a grump on, but there’s no doubting she’s one special baby.

We’re glad mother and baby are healthy and happy after what must have been a trying ordeal.

Share this article to celebrate another beautiful baby being given unto the world.

There are several conspiracies that Princess Diana and Prince Charles have a secret daughter together! What would it be like to find out that there is a princess that has not been known before?

This theory has been circulating in the press for many years and has been discussed several times.

For several years, royal insiders have been hearing rumors that Diana has given birth to a baby girl named Sarah, who is now in her 40s and is older than Prince William.

According to magazine publications, the queen told Diana to go for a gynecological check-up before getting engaged to her son to make sure Diana was able to have children, which was very important for the royal family.

The outrageous story claims that Diana’s eggs were harvested and then fertilized with Prince Charles ’sperm.

Subsequently, the results showed that Diana is able to have children naturally and is completely healthy. However, instead of the embryos being destroyed, one of the doctors implanted it in his wife, making her the unwitting surrogate mother of Diana and Charles’ biological child.

Diana wanted to have a daughter, so she formed a close relationship with goddaughter Mary Wellesley.

These rumors disappeared from the press for a while, but they reappeared, and Camilla was not happy to hear them.

She doesn’t like the fact that this story is in the media’s attention again.

Diana’s name was once again the focus of attention and everywhere in the press she infuriated Camilla. Diana is probably always present in the family and is talked about very often, and this can be difficult for Camilla and now Diana is in the press again.

However, all these rumors about a secret daughter remain unsubstantiated until proven otherwise.

Diana loved the two boys very much, but she told the friends that she wished she had a daughter, so she had a strong connection with her goddaughter Mary Wellesley.

Patrick Jephson, the late princess’ former private secretary, said Diana was very happy when her boys were born, but it happens that his daughters were born when he worked with Diana and she always told him that he was lucky to be have girls.

Unfortunately, Diana never had a daughter.

Lady Mary Wellesley is now a very smart and hardworking woman. Her sister-in-law is supermodel Jemma Kidd, and Mary herself has posed nude twice – once mermaid-style – for portrait artist Howard Morgan, a risky act that would no doubt have appealed to Diana’s mischievous sense of humor.

Going back to the rumors about Diana and Charles’ secret daughter, her name would be Sarah and she would be 8 months older than Prince William. If these rumors were true, then Sarah would be the next heiress to Prince Charles.

It also appears that Duchess Kate met Sarah, which appeared in the press to Camilla’s displeasure.

At the moment we do not know if these rumors could be true or not and we will probably never know, especially if the royal family does not want us to be! However, it would be news that would amaze the entire planet if it turned out to be true and certainly many things would change. Such a big change in the royal family could even affect our lives!

Wendy Williams launched The Wendy Williams Show in 2008 after working on radio since college.

She seems to have the perfect career, but her personal life has been a rocky one. She finalized her divorce with Kevin Hunter in 2020 and the divorce settlement was something no one saw coming as the couple has equal shares in Wendy Williams Production company.

Dominik Bindl/Getty Images for NYFW: The Shows
Wendy Williams was born on July 18, 1964, in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

She described herself as a “misfit” while growing up.

“I was a misfit basically from the time I came out of the womb,” Williams recalled. “My parents are perfect, my sister, Wanda, who is seven years older than I am, is perfect. My brother, Tommy, the only boy and namesake to my father, is perfect. Then there is me.”

“I was an outcast in my own home, and when I got to school, I didn’t quite fit in anywhere there, either,” she added. “I was the Black girl in a practically all-white school. And among the handful of Blacks, I was the ‘white girl,’ the outcast.

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In 1984, she got her first radio gig and went on to become a DJ.

She mastered her radio DJ work and it didn’t take long before she became a radio celebrity.

She was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame the same year she ended her radio show and went on to start her show.

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Wendy got married to Kevin Hunter in 1997 and they had their son Kevin Hunter Jr three years later.

The couple’s 20 years of marriage were filled with drama and controversies.

Kevin cheated on Wendy in 2001, a year after they had their son. Wendy didn’t want to let go and forgave him.

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“If you told me when I was 25 years old or 30 years old that I would stay around for a cheater, I would have been like you are lying,” Wendy Williams explained.

“I’ve got way too much to offer a man to stick around for him cheating on me. At that particular time, I had my career in radio, I was making a great salary, I had vacation property of my very own, and the world was my oyster, so I thought I wasn’t staying around for some cheating. But I did, and I don’t regret it.”

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In 2017 he cheated on her once again for the second time and I guess that’s what ended their marriage. Not only did he cheat on her with a therapist named Sharina Hudson and they have a child together.

She fired Hunter as her manager after the divorce, they split the proceeds from their home in Jersey, $250,000 to get a new home, and a $1 million life insurance policy.