Today’s photo comes courtesy of the Orange County Archives who have this fab photo of Jane in 1942 at Knott’s Berry Farm showing off a replica of the Carson Hill gold nugget.
Jane is posing inside the Assay Office in Ghost Town which had opened the previous year. The office still stands, as does the brick oven she’s posed in front of. The replica is on display in the queue for the Calico Mine Ride.
I received some holiday cheer in the mail this week from a dear friend who sent the stunning Spanish herald of Jane in Young Widow.
Jane’s last onscreen acting job was in 1986, playing a diva movie star named Ava Fontaine in an episode of the TV show Hunter with Fred Dryer.
In the 1970s & 1980s Jane became familiar to a new generation as the spokesperson for Playtex bras. Here’s an ad that appear in one of the “Whatever Became of…?” books by Richard Lamparski.
In the early 1980s, after being off the big and small screens for a number of years, Jane joined the cast of the TV series The Yellow Rose which included Sam Elliott, Cybill Shepherd, David Soul, and Chuck Connors.
Jane made many television appearances as herself over the years, but the TV acting roles were limited. Still, like many other stars of her era, she did guest on Death Valley Days. Here she is with Claude Akins.
Here’s a publicity shot of Jane from “Ballad for a Badman,” the Desilu Playhouse episode she appeared in. The costume is from The French Line and was modified for the television production.
For her second small screen acting job, Jane appeared in an episode of Desilu Playhouse titled “Ballad of a Badman,” costarring Jack Haley.
Jane’s first go at television acting occurred in 1958 on an episode of Colgate Theater called “Macreedy’s Woman.” Produced by Dick Powell’s Four Star Productions, the hope was that the episode would serve a pilot for an ongoing series, but that did not happen.
Cauliflower Cupids and Darker Than Amber were both released in 1970, but the former was shot in the mid-1960s. So, Jane’s brief appearance as the Alabama Tigress in Amber was her last film role.