Jane Alexander

Jane Alexander Bio

Jane Quigley Alexander (born October 28, 1939) is an American-Canadian actress and author who built one of the most respected careers in twentieth-century American theatre and film. She is the recipient of two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, and four Academy Award nominations, along with three Golden Globe nominations, across a career that began on the New York stage in the early 1960s. Alexander is equally recognized for her public service as chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Arts from 1993 to 1997.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, she rose from regional theatre in Washington, D.C., to become a defining stage actress of her generation before expanding into motion pictures and television. Her screen work includes acclaimed performances in The Great White Hope, All the President’s Men, Kramer vs. Kramer, and Testament. In addition to acting, Alexander has written about civic life and serves on several nonprofit boards.

Early Life and Background

Jane Quigley Alexander was born on October 28, 1939, in Boston, Massachusetts. She is the daughter of Ruth Elizabeth Pearson, a nurse, and Thomas B. Quigley, an orthopaedic surgeon. Growing up in a professional New England household, she attended Beaver Country Day School, an all-girls school in Chestnut Hill outside of Boston. It was there that she discovered her love of acting, performing in school productions and finding an early outlet for the craft that would shape her life.

Encouraged by her father to pursue a college education before committing fully to acting, Alexander enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. She concentrated on theatre while also studying mathematics, keeping a practical backup plan in mind. While at Sarah Lawrence, she shared an apartment with Hope Cooke, who would later become Queen Consort of the last king of Sikkim.

During her junior year, Alexander studied abroad at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, where she joined the Edinburgh University Dramatic Society. The experience, performing in a new city and a different tradition of theatre, solidified her determination to continue acting as a profession. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with a Bachelor of Arts degree and returned to the United States ready to begin her stage career.

Path to Acting

Alexander made her Broadway debut in 1963, stepping in as a standby for Sandy Dennis in the production of A Thousand Clowns. She performed the role a handful of times, learning the rhythms of a Broadway house and the discipline of professional rehearsal rooms. For the next several years she worked steadily in regional theatres, building a reputation for intelligence, seriousness, and a rare willingness to disappear into character.

Her major break came in 1967, when she was cast as Eleanor Backman in the original production of Howard Sackler’s The Great White Hope at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. Like her co-star James Earl Jones, she moved with the play to Broadway in 1968, where she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. The success of the production established her as one of the leading stage actresses of her generation.

Producer-director Edwin Sherin, who was artistic director at Arena Stage, directed that original staging, and the two became close collaborators. The production also drew early support from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency Alexander would later lead. When Hollywood came calling, she was ready to take the part of Eleanor Backman to the screen.

Jane Alexander Career

Early Career (1963-1969)

Alexander’s early professional years were anchored in live performance. After her Broadway debut in A Thousand Clowns in 1963, she worked in regional theatres and built a portfolio of supporting roles. These formative productions taught her the stamina required for stage work and gave her the craft foundation that would support her later dramatic turns on film.

The high point of this period was the 1967 Arena Stage production of The Great White Hope and her subsequent Broadway transfer in 1968. For that performance she won the 1969 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play, an early signal of the major prizes that would follow. By the close of the decade she was widely regarded as one of the most compelling new actresses on the American stage.

Breakthrough (1970-1983)

Alexander’s film breakthrough came with The Great White Hope (1970), the screen adaptation of the play that had made her Broadway reputation. Her performance as Eleanor Backman earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress, announcing her arrival in Hollywood. She followed this with a series of politically engaged and emotionally textured roles that cemented her standing.

In 1976 she appeared in All the President’s Men as a confidential source in the Watergate investigation, earning a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards. She portrayed Eleanor Roosevelt in the television films Eleanor and Franklin (1976) and Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years (1977), a performance that required her to age from 18 to 60.

She continued to collect major nominations through the late 1970s and early 1980s. For Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for Arthur Miller’s Playing for Time (1980). Her performance in the drama Testament (1983), a quiet portrait of a mother surviving nuclear aftermath, brought another nomination for Best Actress.

Notable Works and Milestones

Her signature work remains The Great White Hope, the play and film that bookended her early stardom and earned her a Tony Award and an Oscar nomination. Beyond that defining role, her portrayals of Eleanor Roosevelt, a Watergate-era source in All the President’s Men, and the devastated mother in Testament remain reference points for serious screen acting. Her career also includes Brubaker (1980), The Cider House Rules (1999), and Fur (2006), in which she played Gertrude Nemerov, mother of photographer Diane Arbus.

Jane Alexander Award Nominations

Across her career, Jane Alexander has earned nominations from the most respected awarding bodies in American entertainment. She received four Academy Award nominations for The Great White Hope, All the President’s Men, Kramer vs. Kramer, and Testament. She has also received three Golden Globe nominations and eight Tony Award nominations across her long Broadway career, in addition to eight Primetime Emmy nominations.

Jane Alexander Awards Won

Alexander’s trophy case reflects both stage and screen honors. She won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for The Great White Hope in 1969, and she has captured two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie, for Playing for Time in 1980 and Warm Springs in 2005. She was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1994.

Jane Alexander Family

Alexander was born to Ruth Elizabeth Pearson, a nurse, and Thomas B. Quigley, an orthopaedic surgeon. Her parents encouraged her education and supported her decision to study acting before pursuing it professionally, a guidance she has credited in interviews about her early life.

Personal Life

Alexander married her first husband, Robert Alexander, in the early 1960s, and they had one son, Jace Alexander, born in 1964. The couple later divorced. In 1975 she married producer and director Edwin Sherin, with whom she had three stepsons: Tony, Geoffrey, and Jon. Together they maintained a home in Lockeport, Nova Scotia, where she and Sherin became Canadian citizens. Edwin Sherin died in Nova Scotia on May 4, 2017, at the age of 87.