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For the Anglican Bishop see Jane Alexander (Bishop).

Jane Alexander (born October 28, 1939) is an award-winning American actress, author, and former director of the National Endowment for the Arts. Although perhaps best known for playing the female lead in The Great White Hope on both stage and screen, Alexander has played a wide array of roles in both theater and film, and has committed herself to a variety of charitable causes.

Early life

Alexander was born Jane Quigley in Boston, Massachusetts, daughter of Ruth Elizabeth (née Pearson), a nurse, and Thomas B. Quigley, an orthopedic surgeon. She graduated from Beaver Country Day School, an all girls school in Chestnut Hill outside of Boston, where she discovered her love of acting.

Encouraged by her father to go to college rather than immediately embark on an acting career, Alexander attended Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, where she concentrated in theater but also studied mathematics with an eye toward computer programming, in the event she failed as an actress. Alexander spent her junior year studying at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, where she participated in the Edinburgh University Dramatic Society. The experience, together with apparently good reviews of her performances, solidified her determination to continue acting.

Career

Alexander's major break in acting came in 1967 when she played Eleanor Backman in the original production of Howard Sackler's The Great White Hope at Arena Stage in Washington, DC. Like her co-star, James Earl Jones, she went on to play the part both on Broadway (1968), winning a Tony Award for her performance, and in the film version (1970), which earned her an Oscar nomination. Alexander's additional screen credits include All the President's Men (1976), Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), and Testament (1983), all of which earned her Oscar nods, Brubaker (1980), The Cider House Rules (1999), and Fur (2006).

Alexander portrayed Eleanor Roosevelt in two television productions, Eleanor and Franklin and Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years, and she played FDR's mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt in HBO's Warm Springs with Kenneth Branagh and Cynthia Nixon, a role which garnered her an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Alexander co-starred with Rachel Roberts in Steven Gether's teleplay and production of A Circle of Children (1977), about parents coping with their emotionally disturbed children (with an emphasis on autism), which won Gether an Emmy.

Alexander's other television movies include Arthur Miller's Playing for Time, co-starring Vanessa Redgrave, for which Alexander won another Emmy Award; Malice in Wonderland (as famed gossip-monger Hedda Hopper); Blood & Orchids; and In Love and War (1987) co-starring James Woods, which tells the story of James and Sybil Stockdale during Stockdale's eight years as a US Navy Commander and prisoner of war in Vietnam. Alexander also played the protagonist, Dr. May Foster, in the HBO drama series Tell Me You Love Me. Her character, a psychotherapist, serves as the connecting link between three couples coping with relational and sexual difficulties. The show's frank portrayal of "senior" sexuality and explicit sex scenes generated controversy.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed Alexander chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, the organization that had provided partial funding for The Great White Hope at Arena Stage. Alexander moved to Washington, DC and served as chairman of the NEA until 1997. Her book, Command Performance: an Actress in the Theater of Politics (2000), describes the challenges she faced heading the NEA at a time when the 104th U.S. Congress, headed by Newt Gingrich, unsuccessfully strove to shut it down.

In 2004, Alexander, together with her husband, Edwin Sherin, joined the theater faculty at Florida State University. She serves on various boards, including the Wildlife Conservation Society, Project Greenhope, the National Stroke Association, and Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament, and she has received the Israel Cultural Award and the Helen Caldicott Leadership Award. Alexander is also a fellow of the International Leadership Forum.

Personal life

Alexander met her first husband, Robert Alexander, in the early 1960s in New York City, where both were pursuing acting careers. They had one son, Jace, born in 1964, and the couple divorced a few years later. Alexander had been acting regularly in various regional theaters when she met producer/director Edwin Sherin in Washington, DC, where he was serving as the artistic director at Arena Stage. Alexander starred in the original theatrical production of The Great White Hope under Sherin's direction at Arena Stage prior to the play's Broadway debut. The two became good friends and, once divorced from their respective spouses, became romantically involved, marrying in 1975. Between the two they have four children, Alexander's son, Jace, a television director, and Sherin's three sons, Tony, Geoffrey, and Jon, also from a previous marriage.

Filmography

• 6 Rms Riv Vu (1972)
• Find Your Way Home (1973)
• Hamlet (1975)
• The Heiress (1976)
• First Monday in October (1978)
• Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
• Playing For Time (television) (1980)
• Monday After the Miracle (1982)
• Open Admissions (1988) (TV)
• The Night of the Iguana (1988 revival)
• Shadowlands (1990)
• The Visit (1992)
• The Sisters Rosensweig (1993)
• Honour (1998)
• The Ring (2002)
• Feast of Love (2007)
• Gigantic (2008)
• Terminator Salvation (2009)
• The Unborn (2009)

Awards

Academy awards

• 1971 Academy Award for Best Actress In A Leading Role (The Great White Hope, nominee)
• 1977 Academy Award for Best Actress In A Supporting Role (All The President's Men, nominee)
• 1980 Academy Award for Best Actress In A Supporting Role (Kramer vs. Kramer, nominee)
• 1984 Academy Award for Best Actress In A Leading Role (Testament, nominee)

Stage

• 1969 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance (The Great White Hope, winner)
• 1969 Theatre World Award (The Great White Hope, winner)
• 1969 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play (The Great White Hope, winner)
• 1973 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play (6 Rms Riv Vu, nominee)
• 1974 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play (Find Your Way Home, nominee)
• 1979 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play (First Monday in October, nominee)
• 1992 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play (The Visit, nominee)
• 1992 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play (The Visit, nominee)
• 1993 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play (The Sisters Rosensweig, winner)
• 1993 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play (The Sisters Rosensweig, nominee)
• 1998 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play (Honour, nominee)

Emmy Awards

• 1976 Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama or Comedy Special (Eleanor and Franklin, nominee)
• 1977 Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama or Comedy Special (Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years, nominee)
• 1981 Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or a Special (Playing for Time, winner)
• 1984 Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or a Special (Calamity Jane, nominee)
• 1985 Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or a Special (Malice in Wonderland, nominee)
• 1999 Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, nominee)
• 2000 Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series (Law and Order, nominee)
• 2005 Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie (Warm Springs, winner)

Bibliography

• Alexander, Jane. Command Performance: an Actress in the Theater of Politics. PublicAffairs, a member of the Perseus Book Group; New York, NY, 2000. ISBN 1-89162-060-1.
• International Leadership Forum biography
• Lawson, Carol. "Howard Sackler, 52, Playwright Who Won Pulitzer Prize, Dead;" NYT (The New York Times). October 15, 1982. accessed September 8, 2006. (NOTE: payment required for full article, if retrieved online)

References

1. Jane Alexander Biography (1939-)
2. ^ Alexander, Jane. Command Performance: an Actress in the Theater of Politics. PublicAffairs, a member of the Perseus Book Group; New York, NY, 2000. ISBN 1-891620-06-1. pp1-16
3. Lawson,"Howard Sackler, 52, Playwright Who Won Pulitzer Prize, Dead;" NYT (The New York Times)
4. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093249/ Internet Movie Database: In Love and War (1987)
5. http://www.rinr.fsu.edu/winter2003/departments/portrait.html Florida State University; Office of Research
6. http://www.wic.org/bio/alexande.htm Women's International Center (biographies)

External links

• Template:Amg name
• Please use a more specific IBDB template. See the documentation for available templates.
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• Jane Alexander at the TCM Movie Database
• Downstage Center at the American Theatre Wing interview
• Jane Alexander in the International Leadership Forum

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• Living people
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