Jane Alexander Established veteran actress Jane Alexander is more than a well-known and talented stage and film actress who has won many awards, but she is also a published author as well as a former Bill Clinton-appointed chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, a U.S.-funded program that supports artistically excellent projects. Alexander was born as Jane Quigley in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 28, 1939, and after graduating from high school at the all-girls Beaver Country Day School, Alexander studied drama and theater, as well as mathematics at Bronxville, New York’s Sarah Lawrence. She then transferred to University of Edinburgh across the ocean in Scotland, where she received critical acclaim for her work with the Edinburgh University Dramatic Society.
The actress first married Robert Alexander closer to her home turf in New York City in the early 60s, but a few years after they had a son, Jace, who is now a TV director, the two divorced. By 1975, Alexander—who decided to keep her married name—married Edwin Sherin, a producer and director, in Washington, DC. Alexander’s first major role was as Eleanor Backman, which she played in Howard Sackler’s original play The Great White Hope in 1967, a role she reprised alongside co-star James Earl Jones on Broadway in 1968, for which she won her first (and only) Tony Award, and again in 1970 on the big screen version, earning her an Oscar nomination. Alexander continued her Broadway stage work in the 1970s with roles on 6 Rms Riv Vu in 1972, Find Your Way Home in 1973, Hamlet in 1975, The Heiress in 1976, and First Monday in October in 1978. Around this time, Alexander also graced us with her presence on the big screen, in films such as All the President’s Men in 1976, with Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford; and Kramer vs. Kramer in 1979, co-starring Hoffman again and Meryl Streep. In the mid-70s, Alexander also become renowned for playing Eleanor Roosevelt on TV, in Eleanor and Franklin as well as in Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years, opposite Edward Herrmann—who currently plays Richard Gilmore in Gilmore Girls as the father of Lorelai (Lauren Graham)—as Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in both productions. She also portrayed Sara Delano Roosevelt, the mother of FDR, in the more recent made-for-TV movie Warm Springs, starring Kenneth Branagh and Cynthia Nixon from Sex and the City, earning Alexander an Emmy for Best Supporting Actress.
Later Broadway credits include Monday After the Miracle in 1982, The Night of the Iguana in 1988, Shadowlands in 1990, The Visit in 1992, The Sisters Rosensweig in 1993, and in 1998, Honour. Alexander received many a Tony Award nomination for her Broadway and other stage work, but never won again after The Great White Hope. Back on the big screen, Alexander later appeared in Brubaker in 1980; Testament in 1983; City Heat in 1984, with Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds; The Cider House Rules in 1999, starring Tobey Maguire, Charlize Theron, Michael Caine, and Paul Rudd; and, more recently, Fur in 2006, featuring Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jr. Alexander was named chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts by Bill Clinton in 1993, a position lasting until 1997. She later released her book Command Performance: an Actress in the Theater of Politics about her experience there. YUDDY |
