Even in her seventies, Jane Seymour doesn't slow down in her career and you can still hear about her. When she's not busy starring in a Hollywood movie or TV series, she attends social events and appears as a face for various charity projects. Let's take a closer look at the life of the actress who became famous for her Bond girl Solitaire and Doctor Quinn roles.
Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg was born a day after Valentine's Day in 1951. Due to the heterochromia of the iris, each of her eyes has a different colour - the left is green, and the right is light brown. As a girl, she had an unmissable talent for drawing and especially for acting. However, her childhood dream was to become a ballerina, a dream which she accomplished and gained a lot of dancing experience during her teenage years. Unfortunately, her ballet career ended due to a severe injury in 1968. Joyce, who had adopted her stage name Jane Seymour by then, was not broken by the incident. On the contrary, she decided to switch careers and got into acting immediately. Thanks to her talent, effort and looks, she soon became successful. Director Richard Attenborough cast her into a satire musical 'Oh! What a Lovely War' one year later.
In 1971, at the age of twenty, Jane married Attenborough's son Michael. Their relationship ended after only two years; it was the time when the British actress got her most famous role. She became a Bond girl in the Bond film 'Live and Let Die' with Roger Moore. She played Solitaire, a woman who can predict the future from the cards in an action thriller about the legendary 007 agent. In the following years, Jane starred in the adventure fantasy film 'Sinbad and The Eye of the Tiger', the action sci-fi 'Battlestar Galactica', the romantic drama 'The Scarlet Pimpernel', and the biographical film 'Onassis - The Richest Man in the World', for which she won an Emmy Award.
Her biggest career achievement was yet to come, though. After the end of her third marriage with David Flynn, with whom she has two kids (a daughter Katie and a son Sean), Jane was left drowning in debt, so she was more than happy to accept a role in the 19th century American TV series, 'Doctor Quinn'. The role of Michaela Quinn suited her perfectly and she made use of her doctor's family background (her father was a gynaecologist and her mother was a nurse). During five years of filming, a total of 150 episodes was made, each about 45-minute long. She and Joe Lando, who played the character of Byron Sully, have formed an inseparable duo.
Jane's fourth husband James Keach also starred in the series, even directed a few episodes. Jane Seymour won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in TV drama series for Doctor Quinn in 1996. When the series finished in 1998, she kept her pace and starred in dozens of films and series since. Her last role was in the family comedy 'The War with Grandpa' from last year, where she starred alongside Robert de Niro and Uma Thurman.
Jane is a kind woman and a loving mother of four. Maybe that's why she was so believable and popular as Doctor Quinn. In 2010, she founded the Open Hearts Foundation. Its goal is to help others who were not so lucky in life and find new opportunities for them. She has long supported dozens of charities, such as the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the Somaly Mam Foundation, or the Make the Difference Network. She helps not only with her influence and fame, but with resources, too. She donated a large amount from the sale of her paintings to various dance companies and charity organisations supporting sick children.
She was also part of a few protests against nature destruction. She is the narrator of 'The American Southwest: Are We Running Dry?' film, which helps to raise awareness of the water crisis. Jane Seymour is also a member of the Celebrity Cabinet for the American Red Cross, an international ambassador for Childhelp USA, and the Honorary Chairwoman of the City Hearts charity, which helps to pursue theatre arts for abused and disadvantaged children. Jane currently resides in the USA and has been a U.S. citizen since 2005.
In the end, let us share one encouraging quote from Jane Seymour, for those of you who are going through a rough patch at the moment: