Jane Seymour Biography
Summary
"Jane Seymour", OBE (born "Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg" on February 15 1951) is an English born actress best known as the Bond girl in the James Bond film "Live and Let Die" and as the star of the American television series "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" and its telefilm sequels.
Biography
Early life
Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg was born in Hayes, London, England to John Frankenberg, an English Jewish obstetrician of Polish and German origin, and his Dutch wife, Mieke Frankenberg, who survived Japanese prison camps during World War II and cared for other prisoners with no medicine and only relying on her Red Cross training. John passed away in 1990 after 40 years of marriage, and Mieke passed away on October 2, 2007. She took the stage name "Jane Seymour", also the name of King Henry VIII's third wife, at the age of 17.
Acting career
Seymour has had a long acting career in both film and television, beginning in 1969 with an uncredited role in Richard Attenborough's film version of "Oh! What a Lovely War". Soon afterward she married Attenborough's son, Michael Attenborough. Her first major film role was as Lillian Stein, a Jewish woman seeking shelter from the Nazis with a Danish Christian family in the 1970 war drama "The Only Way".
From 1972 to 1973, she gained her first major TV role as Emma Callon in the successful 1970s series "The Onedin Line". During this time she appeared as female lead Prima in the two-part TV mini-series "Frankenstein: The True Story" and as Winston Churchill's lover Pamela Plowden in another of the films produced by her father-in-law, "Young Winston". She also drew her first major international attention as Bond girl Solitaire in the James Bond film "Live and Let Die".
Seymour divorced Michael Attenborough in 1973. She then took only two minor TV roles until cast as Princess Farah in "Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger", the third part of Ray Harryhausen's "Sinbad" trilogy, in 1975. (The film was not released, however, until its stop motion animation sequences had been completed in 1977.) In 1978, she played Serina in the "Battlestar Galactica" motion picture, and then in the first two episodes of the series that followed, until the character was killed. In 1981, she was cast as Cathy Ames in the TV miniseries of John Steinbeck's "East of Eden". She also played the role of an undercover reporter in a TV movie about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
In 1980, Seymour returned to the big screen in the comedy "Oh Heavenly Dog" opposite Chevy Chase, and as Elise McKenna in the romantic fantasy "Somewhere in Time" opposite Christopher Reeve. Seymour appeared nude in the 1984 film "Lassiter", co-starring Tom Selleck.
Seymour won the female lead in the 12-part TV miniseries, "War and Remembrance" (1988), in which she played Natalie Henry, an American Jewish woman trapped in Europe during World War II. The series was based on the successful novel by Herman Wouk, and is noted for its accurate and graphic depiction of the Holocaust.
In 1989, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, Seymour appeared in the television movie "La révolution française" (filmed in both French and English). Seymour appeared as the doomed French queen, Marie Antoinette; the actress' two children — Katherine and Sean — appeared as the queen's children.
Seymour continued to take numerous roles in TV movies and series, most notably as Dr. Michaela 'Mike' Quinn in the TV series "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" and its TV-movie sequels (1993-2001), through which she met her fourth husband, actor-director James Keach. While filming the 1996-1997 season, Seymour allowed British rock group Radiohead to record its album "OK Computer" at her mansion. In 2004, she made several guest appearances in the WB Network series "Smallville", playing Genevieve Teague, the wealthy, scheming mother of Jason Teague (Jensen Ackles). She also made a guest appearance on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit".
Seymour returned to the big screen in 2005 with playing Kathleen Cleary, wife of fictional U.S. Secretary of the Treasury William Cleary (Christopher Walken), in the comedy "Wedding Crashers". She returned to TV in the short-lived WB series "Modern Men", broadcast in spring 2006.
In fall 2006, Seymour 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", which stars Lori Loughlin and Jonathan Silverman. She also appeared in ITV's "Marple: Ordeal By Innocence" based on the Agatha Christie novel. She was a contestant on season five of the U.S. reality show "Dancing with the Stars", which on the 7th week of competition, she was eliminated.
Honours
Seymour was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II on New Year's Eve, 1999. She became a U.S. citizen on February 11, 2005.
Marriages and children
1971-1973 : Michael Attenborough
1977-1978 : Geoffrey Planer
1981-1992 : David Flynn (with whom she had two children, Katherine, born 1981; and Sean, born 1986)
1993 to present : James Keach (with whom she had twins Johnny and Kris, born 1995, named after family friends Johnny Cash and Christopher Reeve)
Selected filmography
"Live and Let Die" (1973)
"Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger" (1977)
"Battlestar Galactica" (1978 theatrical-release version)
"Somewhere in Time" (1980)
"The Scarlet Pimpernel" (1982)
"Lassiter" (1983)
"Head Office" (1985)
"War and Remembrance" (1988)
"Quest for Camelot" (1998) (voice)
"Wedding Crashers" (2005)
Trivia
Her eyes are two different colours. Her right eye is hazel and her left is green. (See Heterochromia.)
Thanks to her mother, she speaks a little Dutch.
In 1987, she posed for a non-nude pictorial in "Playboy" magazine.
Radiohead recorded their critically acclaimed album Ok Computer in her mansion, which was rumored to be haunted.
Her hair extensions are made in China by hand.
In 2007, she admitted to having undergone plastic surgery (breast augmentation, eye lift). (Daily Mail article)
Credit
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article about Jane Seymour.
