In May 1956, the Hall family moved to New York and, in the early 1960s, they again moved to Los Angeles.

Hall graduated from Beverly Hills High School in 1968. She was in the school’s productions of The Music Man, The Mikado, The Grass Harp, and The Madwoman of Chaillot. In high school, Gleason received acting instruction from John Ingle, the soap opera star, who taught at BHHS from 1955 to 1985. She continued her education at UCLA, then Occidental College, from which she graduated. Gleason has been a teacher herself, holding classes and workshops all over the country.

Although Gleason started her acting career in television, she is best known for her stage and musical theatre work. She made her Broadway debut in 1977 in I Love My Wife, for which she was honored with a Theatre World Award.

Her film and television career began in 1977 with her first appearance on her father’s program Let’s Make A Deal. In 1979, she was cast as a supporting character in Hello, Larry, a role she held throughout the oft-maligned sitcom’s two-season run. She had film roles in Hannah and Her Sisters and Heartburn (both 1986). In the television movie Still the Beaver she played Beaver’s ex-wife, Kimberly. Gleason worked again with Woody Allen in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), this time playing the wife of Allen’s character. Gleason appeared in several films in the 1990s, including F/X2, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Boogie Nights, and The Boys. More recently she has appeared in The Good Wife, Blue Bloods, The Wedding Planner, and The Newsroom. On television, she played the role of Nadine Berkus on the show Love & War (1992–95), several episodes of which she also directed.

Gleason has been married three times. She was married to acting coach Paul G. Gleason (not the late actor Paul X. Gleason, also known as Paul Gleason), whose surname she kept professionally, although they divorced on June 28, 1982, in Nevada. Later, she married Michael Bennahum. Gleason has one child, Aaron David Gleason, from her first marriage.

In 2007, Gleason was honoured by the New England Theatre Conference with a Special Award for Achievement in Theatre.

Joanne Hall was born in Toronto, the eldest of three siblings born to television producer and game show personality Monty Hall, and his wife, Marilyn (née Plottel), both of whom died in 2017. At the time of her birth, her father was working at the Canada Wheat Board and had changed his name from Halparin to Hall. He later started his TV career and went on to fame as host of Let’s Make a Deal.