Jane Seymour (actress)
Jane Seymour is a British actress. After making her screen debut as an uncredited teenage extra in the 1969 musical comedy Oh! What a Lovely War, Seymour moved to roles in film and television, including a leading role in the television series The Onedin Line and the role of psychic Bond girl Solitaire in the James Bond film Live and Let Die.
Critical acclaim followed, with a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series for her role in Captains and the Kings. In 1982, Seymour won her first Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television for her role in the miniseries East of Eden. She received three additional Golden Globe nominations in that same category: one for her portrayal of Wallis Simpson, the twice-divorced American wife of the former King Edward VIII, in the television film The Woman He Loved, and another two for her role in the miniseries War and Remembrance. Her War and Remembrance role also garnered her a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Special.
Seymour also won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Special for her portrayal of Maria Callas in Onassis: The Richest Man in the World.
In 1993, Seymour was cast as Dr. Michaela Quinn in the television series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, a medical drama set in the 1880s Wild West. For her performance in this role, over the course of its six-season run she received nominations twice for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, twice for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series, and four times for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Series – Drama. Winning one of the latter awards.
She later earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and, in 2000, was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
Seymour also had roles in numerous films, including Somewhere in Time, The Scarlet Pimpernel, La Révolution française, Wedding Crashers, Love, Wedding, Marriage, Little Italy, The War with Grandpa and Friendsgiving.
In addition to her acting career, Seymour established a nonprofit, the Open Hearts Foundation, co-authored several children's books and self-help books, and created jewellery, scarves, furniture, rugs, handbags, paintings and sculptures under the label Jane Seymour Designs.
Early life
Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg was born on 15 February 1951 in Uxbridge, Middlesex, England, to Mieke van Tricht, a nurse, and Benjamin John Frankenberg FRCOG, a distinguished gynaecologist and obstetrician. Her father was Jewish; born in England to a family from Nowe Trzepowo, a village in Poland. Her mother was a Dutch Protestant who was a prisoner of war during World War II, and had lived in the Dutch East Indies. Seymour stated that she'd learned Dutch from her mother and the fellow survivors from the Japanese internment camp, who frequently spent holidays together in the Netherlands, when she was a child. Encouraged by her parents --- she'd learned to speak fluent French.Her paternal grandfather Lee Grahame had come to live in the East End of London, after escaping the Czarist pogroms when he was just 14. He is listed in the 1911 census as living in Bethnal Green, working as a hairdresser. Then went on to establish his own company. Seymour's father Benjamin qualified at the UCL Medical School in 1938. Joining the medical branch of the RAFVR after the outbreak of war. Serving in England, Belgium, Italy and South Africa. Ending his service as a squadron leader with a mention in despatches. After the war, Frankenberg continued his career at various London hospitals, including St Leonard's Hospital, Hackney, the East End Maternity Hospital, the City of London Maternity Hospital and finally Hillingdon Hospital, for which he designed the maternity unit. A close associate of Patrick Steptoe, he assisted in pioneering discussions on in-vitro fertilisation and published papers on adolescent and teenage sexual behaviours.
Seymour was educated at Tring Park School for the Performing Arts in Hertfordshire. Choosing the screen name Jane Seymour, after the English queen Jane Seymour, because it seemed more saleable. One of her notable features is heterochromia, making her right eye brown and her left eye green.
Acting career
In 1969, Seymour appeared uncredited in her first film, Richard Attenborough's Oh! What a Lovely War. In 1970, she appeared in her first major film role in the war drama The Only Way. Playing Lillian Stein; a Jewish woman seeking shelter from Nazi persecution. In 1973, she gained her first major television role as Emma Callon, in the successful 1970s series The Onedin Line. During this time, she appeared as the female lead Prima, in the two-part television miniseries Frankenstein: The True Story. Later appearing as Winston Churchill's girlfriend Pamela Plowden in Young Winston, produced by her father-in-law Richard Attenborough.In 1973, she achieved international fame in her role as Bond girl Solitaire in the James Bond film Live and Let Die. IGN ranking her as 10th in a Top 10 Bond Babes list. In 1975, she was cast as Princess Farah in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, the third part of Ray Harryhausen's Sinbad trilogy. Filmed in 1975, it was not released until its stop motion animation sequences had been completed in 1977. Then in 1978, she appeared as Serina in the Battlestar Galactica film, and in the first five episodes of the television series. She later returned to the big screen in the comedy Oh Heavenly Dog opposite Chevy Chase.
In 1980, she played the role on stage of Constanze in Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus, opposite Ian McKellen as Salieri. With Tim Curry as Mozart. The play premiering on Broadway in 1980, running for 1,181 performances. And was nominated for seven Tony Awards, of which it won five.
Also in 1980, she was given the role of young theatre actress Elise McKenna in the period romance Somewhere in Time. Though the film was made with a markedly limited budget, the role enticed her with a character she'd felt she knew. The effort decided a break from her earlier work, and marked the start of her friendship with co-star Christopher Reeve.
In 1981, she appeared in the television film East of Eden, based on the novel by John Steinbeck. Her portrayal of main antagonist Cathy Ames which won her a Golden Globe. In 1982, she appeared in The Scarlet Pimpernel with Anthony Andrews, and her Amadeus costar Ian McKellen. In 1984, she appeared nude in the film Lassiter, co-starring Tom Selleck. But the film was a box office flop. In 1987, she was the subject of a pictorial in Playboy magazine, although she did not pose nude.
In 1988, she won the female lead in the twelve-part television miniseries War and Remembrance, the continued story from the miniseries The Winds of War. Playing Natalie Henry, an American Jewish woman trapped in Europe during World War II. That same year, she won an Emmy Award for playing Maria Callas in the television movie Onassis: The Richest Man in the World.
In 1989, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, she appeared in the television film La révolution française, filmed in both French and English. Then appeared as the doomed French queen, Marie Antoinette; her two children, Katherine and Sean, appearing as the queen's children.
In the 1990s, Seymour earned popular and critical praise for her onging headlining role as Dr. Michaela "Mike" Quinn in the television series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and its television sequels Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman: The Movie and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman: The Heart Within. Her work on the original series earning her a second Golden Globe Award. And while working in the series, she met her fourth husband, actor-director James Keach.
In the 2000s, she continued to work primarily in television. In 2004 and 2005, she made six guest appearances in The WB series Smallville, playing Genevieve Teague, the wealthy, scheming mother of Jason Teague. In 2005, she returned to the big screen in the comedy Wedding Crashers, playing Kathleen Cleary, wife of fictional United States Secretary of the Treasury William Cleary, played by Christopher Walken. In spring 2006, she appeared in the short-lived The WB series Modern Men. Later that year, she guest-starred as a law school professor on an episode of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, and as a wealthy client on the Fox legal drama Justice. In 2007, she guest-starred in the ABC sitcom In Case of Emergency. She also appeared in ITV's Marple: Ordeal By Innocence, based on the Agatha Christie novel. Appearing as a contestant on season five of the US reality show Dancing with the Stars; where she finished in sixth place, along with her partner Tony Dovolani. Then guest starred in "One Life to Lose", a soap opera-themed episode of the ABC crime dramedy Castle.
She later appeared in the Hallmark Channel film Dear Prudence ; the romantic comedy Love, Wedding, Marriage ; and the Hallmark Movie Channel film Lake Effects.
In April 2016, she starred as Florence Lancaster in Noël Coward's play The Vortex, presented in Singapore by the British Theatre Playhouse. In 2022, she began playing the title role on the Irish Acorn TV series Harry Wild.
In 2020, she starred in Ruby's Choice, an Australian comedy/drama produced and directed by Michael Budd. Which follows Ruby as a woman with early dementia, and its impact on her and her family, when she is no longer able to live independently. And so moves in with the family. Winning the Australian screen industry Network Award for best actress.
The film released theatrically across Australia and New Zealand on 3 March 2022. Then on 7 March 2022, Ruby's Choice premiered in Santa Barbara, California, at the 37th Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Where it was a Nominee Best International Feature Film. Seymour's 'Ruby's Choice' made the U.S. premiere at SBIFF|first=Joe|last=Buttitta|date=March 8, 2022
Seymour then appeared in the Netflix movie, Irish Wish, released on March 15, 2024, on Netflix. Debuing at number one on Netflix's most watched films list - two days following its release.
In 2025, she began hosting an Acorn TV/BBC America series called Relative Secrets.