Tragic Details About Jane Seymour's Life
Trigger warning: The following article contains mentions of sexual harassment, pregnancy loss, and suicide.
With a career spanning over 50 years, Jane Seymour is an acting legend. In addition to movie roles like 2020's "The War with Grandpa," since 2022, Seymour's played the eponymous role in "Harry Wild," in which she plays a retired English professor with a new career solving crimes. Both on and off screen, Seymour's been on a mission to fight ageism. "I just would like to be respected and heard; I think when you get older they kind of look at you like, 'Oh well, she's past her prime. She's a little old woman, she's not important.'" she explained to People in 2024, less than a month after she turned 73. "It's not old," she said of her age. "That is wisdom on two legs."
Age-based discrimination is only one of the many challenges Seymour has faced during her life. Originally, she pursued dancing, but an injury required her to change careers, so she pivoted to acting. Seymour also suffered sexual harassment, dealt with heartbreaking divorces, and survived serious health and pregnancy complications.
Through it all, however, she's demonstrated a remarkable resilience. "I'm a person who, when something bad happens, I get over it and move forward," Seymour explained to Playboy (via Time). Here are some of the difficulties she's endured, and how she overcame them.
Jane Seymour was sexually harassed early in her acting career
Jane Seymour suffered a major career setback when she was in her early 20s and just starting out as an actor. While seeking a film role, Seymour was sexually harassed by a producer. When she rebuffed his advances, the producer threatened her future career prospects if she reported the incident. To make matters worse, Seymour later discovered that this individual's behavior was well-known and condoned by others in the industry. "The fact that it stopped me from being an actress for a whole year — and I could have quit the profession completely — shows you how devastating it was to me," Seymour explained on "Sunrise" decades later (via Variety).
However, after some time away from her profession, Seymour stepped onto the stage again. As she started to ramp up her career, Seymour had to face her former harasser a second time. She was still upset by her past encounter with this man, so when he offered her a starring role in "Somewhere in Time," she avoided being alone with him to avoid further harassment. The film became one of Seymour's career-defining performances.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
She almost died in 1988
In the late 1980s, Jane Seymour experienced a disastrous incident when she was working on "Onassis: The Richest Man in the World." The actor was ill with bronchitis, and an antibiotic shot was incorrectly given to her. Moments later, Seymour experienced anaphylactic shock and her heart stopped. Fortunately, the nurse acted quickly and gave Seymour cortisone and adrenaline to save her life. The actor went on to win an Emmy for her performance in the TV movie.
In the years since, Seymour has shared her memories of the traumatic experience. "I did see the white light and I did look down and quite clearly see and hear everyone screaming and trying to resuscitate me," Seymour recalled to The Times. She also remembered feeling that it was imperative that she stay alive so she could care for her children.
This incident was transformative for Seymour. "It stopped me from worrying about dying or death or anything like that. I realized there's no pain or panic attached," she informed Pioneer Press. "Life is incredibly worth living and I don't want to waste a moment of it." In addition, the actor's noted that surviving such a dire experience makes life's challenges seem a lot less daunting.
Jane Seymour dealt with pregnancy complications and miscarriages
Jane Seymour is a mom to six children: four biological children and two stepkids. Prior to becoming pregnant with her twin sons, John Stacy Keach and Kristopher Keach, Seymour experienced two miscarriages. Sadly, one of these pregnancy losses occurred while she was hosting the Rose Parade. Seymour didn't alert anyone during the live production and kept working even though she was having a miscarriage.
Then, during her pregnancy with her twins, Seymour dealt with serious medical difficulties. "I nearly died having the twins," the actor informed OK! in 2008 (via Today). "I had preeclampsia, which is toxemia, and I had to have an emergency C-section and I almost lost my life." After the births, Seymour's sons spent four months wearing heart monitors, and she experienced the stress of constantly checking them to make sure they were ok.
Seymour also dealt with the difficulty of balancing working and parenting, since she only got three weeks maternity leave after her twins were born. Even so, being pregnant while acting on "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," was an improvement over her past experiences. In this instance, Seymour's pregnancy became part of the plot, and the production team changed the work schedule to accommodate her pregnancy. In contrast, earlier in her career, Seymour had lost acting roles due to pregnancy and breastfeeding.
Her third and fourth marriages had distressing endings
Jane Seymour has been married and divorced four times. The end of her marriage to David Flynn, her third husband, was particularly difficult since she discovered he owed millions of dollars and had depleted their joint finances. "I was traumatized and just did what I had to do, which was figure out how I was going to earn some money to pay back what he'd lost," Seymour informed The Times in 2023. In a serendipitous reversal of fortune, her immediate search for a job led to her starring role on "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman."
Besides seeking acting gigs to support her kids and tackle her money difficulties, Seymour bolstered her mental health by learning how to paint. "Painting took me out of panic mode and into a serene, calm place," she divulged to Psychology Today. Besides proving a satisfying hobby, Seymour's art grew into a professional endeavor and added revenue stream. Over the years, she's sold work privately and in gallery shows, specializing in watercolors.
Seymour's fourth marriage to James Keach lasted 20 years, and she found their divorce to be especially emotional. "I thought we were going to be married forever," Seymour recalled to the Daily Mail. Their union ended abruptly when she found out Keach was cheating on her. "My self-confidence took a real knock," she added. However, Seymour empowered herself by traveling and focusing on self-care, later pursuing a satisfying relationship with John Zambetti.
A family tragedy haunted Jane Seymour for years
Many people don't know that Jane Seymour was born Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg. "My agent made me change it and we came up with the name Jane Seymour, which, of course, is quintessentially English," she told the Mirror. "But I'm not."
Her Jewish grandfather fled Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II, but not all of her family was so fortunate and the family tragedy haunted Seymour for years. It wasn't until 2015 that she learned what happened to relatives her father had searched for but never found. On the BBC show "Who Do You Think You Are?" Seymour learned that one of her great-aunts, Micaela, was able to escape Poland, but another, Jadwiga, was imprisoned. While she survived, her husband and children died. After the war, Jadwiga briefly reconnected with her sister but was later found dead, likely by suicide, in 1946. "I felt like I'd been through hell," the actor told the Mirror of learning her family history.
Seymour's Dutch mother also faced horror during the war, spending more than three years in a Japanese concentration camp in Indonesia. While Seymour was aware of her mother's imprisonment, her mother declined to share the specifics of the experience with her children. "A lot of my mother's friends who survived committed suicide afterwards," she said on "Who Do You Think You Are?" (via Irish Mirror). "The post-traumatic stress is huge." Still, Seymour has viewed her mother's attitude as a powerful tool to meet life's difficulties. "She'd been through some horrendous times, but her philosophy was to never be bitter and always help others," the actor informed Saga Exceptional.
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