(Screen legend and Academy Award-winner Bette Davis ("All ...)
Screen legend and Academy Award-winner Bette Davis ("All About Eve," "Dark Victory") stars with Emmy-nominee Barry Sullivan ("Rich Man, Poor Man") in this compelling look at why people drift apart in marriage and seek divorce, with all its consequences. With Frances Dee ("Of Human Bondage"), Richard Anderson ("The Six Million Dollar Man") and Otto Kruger ("High Noon"). Rated a high *** (three stars) by Leonard Maltin!
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Jane Cowl was an American actress, playwright, director and commentator.
Background
Jane Cowl was born on December 14, 1883 in Boston, Massachussets, United States. She was the daughter of Charles A. and Grace (Avery) Bailey. She reportedly characterized her family as "New England for generations" and herself as "an only child of only children. " Her father, a native of Lowell, Massachussets, was identified variously as a provision dealer and a clerk and her mother, from Albany, New York, as a singer and a voice teacher. The family moved to Brooklyn, New York, when the girl was about three years old. She described her parents as very poor; however, her mother, whom she adored, took her to plays and concerts whenever possible.
Education
Two years at Erasmus Hall topped off education in the public schools of Brooklyn. She attended classes at Columbia University.
Career
Cowl won acclaim in her first leading role, as Fanny Perry in Belasco’s production of Leo Ditrichstein’s Is Matrimony a Failure? (1909). After two seasons with the Hudson Theatre stock company in Union Hill, New Jersey, she returned to Broadway in the fall of 1910. The failure of The Upstart was followed by the success of The Gamblers that year, and in September 1912 she achieved star billing in Within the Law. Common Clay was also a success for her in 1915. In 1917 Cowl appeared in the second of eight motion pictures, the Samuel Goldwyn production The Spreading Dawn. In February of that year she opened on Broadway in Lilac Time, which she had written in collaboration with Jane Murfin under the pseudonym “Alan Langdon Martin. ” Lilac Time was a moderate hit in New York and on tour, and the pair’s next two efforts, Daybreak (1917) and Information Please (1918), were also fairly successful. Late in 1919 Cowl opened in Smilin’ Through, also written by “Martin, ” which was a theatrical phenomenon, running for 1, 170 performances on Broadway (1919–22). Both Lilac Time (in 1928) and Smilin’ Through (in 1932 and 1941) were made into motion pictures. In 1922 she scored a personal triumph in Romeo and Juliet, in which she established a world record for Shakespearean productions of 856 consecutive performances. By this time she was acclaimed the most beautiful woman on the American stage.
In 1923, Cowl reached the peak of her acting career as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, which ran for 856 consecutive performances (157 in New York, the remainder on tour), establishing the world record for Shakespearean productions. In 1924, she appeared in Pelleas and Melisande. A brief dry spell was followed by two hits: Noel Coward's Easy Virtue (1925) and Robert Sherwood's comedy The Road to Rome (1927).
Subsequent efforts floundered, including a production of The Jealous Moon, which she wrote with Theodore Charles, and a 1930 revival of Twelfth Night, which she also designed. Cowl's last substantial run was in John Van Druten's Old Acquaintance, which opened in 1940. After some years playing stock and revivals around the country, she made her last New York stage appearance in The First Mrs. Fraser, in 1948.
Most of Cowl's films were undistinguished. In 1943, she appeared as herself in the movie Stage Door Canteen, of interest mainly because she was a co-director of the actual Stage Door Canteen operated by the American Theatre Wing during World War II. The actress died in Santa Monica, California, on June 22, 1950.
Achievements
Jane Cowl, who played upward of fifty roles, was first and last a stage luminary in the great tradition, faultlessly theatrical on- or offstage.
In New York alone, with Peters as her Romeo and scenery designer, she racked up a record of 157 performances.
(An unwed mother assumes a dead bride's identity and moves...)
Personality
Her beauty dark lustrous eyes, a fine figure and a full-toned, well-modulated voice contributed to her magnetism and allure. Capricious, vain, and sometimes selfish, she often created pandemonium; yet she was liked by her colleagues and admired by the public. Her unerring dramatic instincts, inquiring mind, quick imagination, and conscientious industry moved her to the forefront of professional American actors at a time of staggering robustness in the theatre.
Connections
In a civil ceremony June 18, 1906, Miss Cowl married Adolph E. Klauber (1869 - 1933), then drama critic of the New York Times. They had no children.
