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First Monday in October

as Christine Snow

1981
Love in a Goldfish Bowl

as Sandra Slide

1961
High School Confidential!

as Arlene Williams

1958
Slaughter on 10th Avenue

as Madge Pitts

1957
1984

as Julia of the Outer Party

1956
The Harder They Fall

as Beth Willis

1956
Man with the Gun

as Nelly Bain

1955
Female on the Beach

as Amy Rawlinson

1955
The High and the Mighty

as Sally McKee

1954
Alaska Seas

as Nicky Jackson

1954
Split Second

as Dorothy 'Dottie' Vale

1953
Pony Express

as Denny Russell

1953
The Vanquished

as Rose Slater

1953
Sky Full of Moon

as Dixie Delmar

1952
Mystery Street

as Vivian Heldon

1950
Caged

as Jeta "Smoochie" Kovsky

1950
Union Station

as Marge Wrighter

1950
Johnny Belinda

as Stella McCormick

1948
Jan Sterling Jan Sterling

Birthday

1921-04-03

Place of Birth

New York City, New York, USA

Biography

Most active in films during the 1950s, Jan Sterling received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The High and the Mighty (1954), and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the same performance. Her career declined during the 1960s, however she continued to play occasional roles for television and theatre. Sterling was born Jane Sterling Adriance in New York City, into a well-to-do family. She was educated in private schools before heading to Europe with her family. She was schooled by private tutors in London and Paris, and was enrolled in Fay Compton's dramatic school in London. As a teenager she returned to Manhattan, and using variations of her given name, such as Jane Adriance and Jane Sterling, began her career by making a Broadway appearance in Bachelor Born, and went on to appear in such major stage works as Panama Hattie, Over 21, and Present Laughter. In 1947, she made her film debut in Tycoon, billed as Jane Darian. Ruth Gordon reportedly insisted she change her stage name and they agreed upon Jan Sterling. She played a prominent supporting role in Johnny Belinda (1948). Alternating between films and television, Sterling appeared in several television anthology series during the 1950s, and played film roles in Caged (1950), Mystery Street (1950), The Mating Season (1951), Ace in the Hole (1951), Flesh and Fury (1952), The Human Jungle (1954), and Female on the Beach (1955). Often cast as hard and determined characters, she played a more sympathetic character in Sky Full of Moon (1952). In 1950, she was cast as Ruth in the ABC western series The Marshal of Gunsight Pass. The series was telecast live from a primitive studio lot at the Iverson Ranch at Chatsworth, California. In 1954 Sterling was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The High and the Mighty. Later that year, she travelled to England to play the role of Julia in the first film version of George Orwell's 1984, despite being several months pregnant at the time. During the following years, she appeared regularly in films such as Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, Kathy O, and The Female Animal. In late 1968, she began portraying the role of conniving Miss Foss in the long-running CBS soap opera The Guiding Light. She retired from films in favor of the stage in 1969 and returned to television in 1979 to portray Lou Henry Hoover in the miniseries Backstairs at the White House. Sterling's marriage to John Merivale ended in divorce, and her career began to decline after the death of her second husband, the actor Paul Douglas, in 1959. In the 1970s, she entered into a long-lasting personal relationship with Sam Wanamaker. Jan Sterling died in 2004 in Los Angeles, California, aged 82.
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