- Born
- Birth nameJoyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg
- Nickname
- The Queen of the Miniseries
- Height5′ 5½″ (1.66 m)
- Jane Seymour was born as Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg in 1951 in Middlesex, England, to a nurse mother and gynaecologist/obstetrician father. She is of Polish Jewish (father) and Dutch (mother) descent. She adopted the acting name of "Jane Seymour" when she entered show business as it was easier for people to remember (and the name of one of King Henry VIII's wives). She attracted the attention of the James Bond film producers when they saw her on British television. She was cast as the main Bond girl, "Solitaire", in Live and Let Die (1973). The role gained her international recognition but she was in danger of losing it all like the previous Bond girls, so she came to the U.S.
A casting director advised her to lose her English accent and acquire an American accent to land roles on American television. She did and started getting roles, earning five Emmy nominations, resulting in one win for Onassis: The Richest Man in the World (1988) for playing Maria Callas. She won Golden Globe awards for both East of Eden (1981) and the American television series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993), where she played the title role for 5 years. She occasionally appeared in feature films, memorably in Somewhere in Time (1980) and in Wedding Crashers (2005).
Married and divorced four times, she gave birth to four children and is a stepmother to two. They have children of their own, making her a grandmother. As of 2018, she has been acting in television movies and making guest-appearances.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Pedro Borges/Robert Sieger - Jane was born in Hillingdon and educated at Wimbledon High School until she was 13 then she transferred to an Arts Educational School to study ballet but developed cartilage trouble forcing her to abandon her career. At 7 she made her film debut in Oh! What a Lovely War, On leaving school she did some stage work and was seen as Ophelia in Hamlet and on TV in The Onedin Line where she was spotted by Cubby Broccoli who picked her to play Solitaire in the Bond film Live and Let Die. She did a tv commercial for perfume and a book The Guide to Romantic Living.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Tonyman 5
- SpousesJames Keach(May 15, 1993 - December 16, 2015) (divorced, 2 children)David Flynn(July 18, 1981 - May 1, 1992) (divorced, 2 children)Victor Geoffrey Planer(August 20, 1977 - 1978) (divorced)Michael Attenborough(July 10, 1971 - 1973) (divorced)
- ChildrenJohn Stacy KeachKristopher Steven Keach
- ParentsMieke Gysbertha Johanna Adriana Van TrichtJohn Benjamin Frankenberg
- RelativesAnne Gould(Sibling)
- Heterochromia (different colored-eyes: one green and one brown)
- Long brown flowing hair
- Crooked smile
- Her daughter, Katherine Flynn, was Miss Golden Globe 2001. Her twin sons were named Johnny and Kristopher after family friends Johnny Cash (who is Johnny's godfather) and Christopher Reeve (who is Kris's godfather). Ex-stepmother of Kalen Keach and Jennifer Flynn.
- Has one green eye and one brown eye; a condition known as heterochromia.
- She and James Keach's longtime friendship with June Carter Cash and Johnny Cash led to the Cashes guest-starring on Seymour's television program Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993) and to Keach producing the Cash biopic Walk the Line (2005).
- She never succumbed to the "Curse of the Bond Girl" (e.g. when an unknown girl acts in a James Bond film, she gets a great buildup but then quickly disappears from acting and becomes a forgotten actress, such as Daniela Bianchi, Mie Hama, etc). She was an unknown twenty-two year old actress when she got her big break in the James Bond film Live and Let Die (1973) but escaped the curse by following the advice of casting director Renée Valente who told her to lose her English accent and acquire an American accent. Once she did that, she was able to work consistently on American television and winning the prestigious Emmy Award in 1988. She continues to act well into her sixties. She said that people still approach her every day and ask her about her performance in the James Bond film, even though it was more than 40 years ago.
- Had recently married her first husband, Michael Attenborough when she filmed Live and Let Die (1973). While filming it, she visited a psychic who predicted that she would be married three more times. Though the thought was a shock to her at the time, it proved to be eerily accurate.
- You have to count on living every single day in a way you believe will make you feel good about your life - so that if it were over tomorrow, you'd be content with yourself.
- [on her looks] I had ordered long legs, but they never arrived. My eyes are weird too, one is gray and the other is green. I have a crooked smile and my nose looks like a ski slope. No, I would not win a Miss contest.
- After I had my first child, I stopped breastfeeding early because I had been told that there was a possibility that I might star in The Thorn Birds (1983), which I wanted more than life itself. I went to do the screen test and everything went great until we [Richard Chamberlain and I] did the love scene. I had stopped feeding for three weeks and unexpectedly my milk came in! I lifted myself up in my pink 1930s negligee, and it's a wet T-shirt contest! I looked up and it was just terrible. There was a big puddle of white milk all over his bare chest. I mean a puddle. This was a serious incident. His reaction was not good. You just say, "What can you do?".
- Get over jet-lag quickly. I think a lot of people waste the first few days sleeping in the wrong time zone. Sometimes, I take melatonin, but at other times, a glass of wine will do it.
- [In 2015, on her long successful career following her big break in the James Bond film Live and Let Die (1973)] It wasn't really hard to get roles directly after that. I met Renée Valente, who was a casting director at the time. And she said, "If you can lose your English accent, you would do very well in America." I came to America with no work permit, no agent, nowhere really to live, and within six weeks I got my first role. I became labeled as the "queen of the mini-series" because I did one mini-series after another. Basically, I worked consistently and usually with a different American accent every time.
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