One look at Jane Seymour’s resume would be enough to give the Energizer Bunny himself reason to pause. Not only is she an internationally known actress, she is also a wife and mother, author, designer, activist for children’s causes and a celebrated artist whose work now takes her all over the world and has helped raise thousands for worthy causes. Her passion for living seems to be fueled by a drive to not waste a moment and indeed “living in the moment” is the motto she lives by.  It’s a lesson she learned at a very young age.

Early Childhood
Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg (later to be known as Jane Seymour) was born on February 15, 1951. Her parents, John and Mieke Frankenberg, were determined to raise Jane and her two younger sisters Sally and Anne with a passion for life so, although they weren’t wealthy, they traveled as much as possible in the hope that this would expose their girls to as many different ideas and experiences as possible. The family would have "adventures" either staying with friends and family throughout Europe or traveling in a broken-down old car, which Jane remembers fondly her mother would pack with every possible item they could want on the road; even going so far as to bring plants in case they would run out of food and need to grow their own!

 

 

Jane’s father, John Frankenberg, was a top fertility specialist in England whose need to work 3 of 4 weekends resulted in Jane and her sisters spending a lot of time at the hospital- working as auxiliary nurses. Ironically this training came in quite handy when years later Jane would be called on to play one of the most beloved roles of her career- that of Michaela Quinn in Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman.

Her mother, Mieke, had survived 3 years in a concentration camp in Indonesia before she met Jane’s father. Her life lessons were not lost on Jane who took to heart from a tender age, her mother’s motto - go out and help someone else when you are down yourself.

The Frankenberg house was open to everyone and the girls were exposed to people of all cultures and ideas- people from all over the world, many of whom Mieke had met during the war. It was an intellectually stimulating environment that served to reinforce in Jane the belief instilled by her parents, that she could be anything she wanted to be. A visit to Covent Garden one night to see her famous “Aunt Amy” on stage, made it clear to the young girl that what she wanted to be more than anything in the world was a ballerina.

Jane’s lack of interest in her studies and subsequent poor grades helped convince her parents to allow her to change schools in high school and she was eventually sent to the Arts Educational Trust to pursue her dream of dancing. The dream, she recalls, was sometimes more of a nightmare when it came to trying to fit in with the other girls. She relates one particularly defining incident during her first professional dancing and acting job in her book Remarkable Changes.

“During the show we had about ten or fifteen very quick costume changes. For each, we’d have to run up the stairs the moment we left the stage, take off one load of clothing, throw on another load of clothing, run downstairs, and be backstage just in time to go on again. It was very quick, and very stressful. During one particular show, I came running up to change clothes, and the rest of the chorus were all there, waiting for me. They stripped the clothes off me and threw talcum powder all over me so I couldn’t go on for the next scene. Then they ran off, leaving me there naked, calling to the boys from the chorus to come up and look at me… I had never been naked in front of them, and so their cruel trick left me mortified and devastated.”

For Jane, this experience (and other similar ones) was a defining one in her understanding of herself and laid the foundation for the woman she would one day become.

“ I began to understand who I was, especially because it was so clear that I was different from many of my classmates. I came to accept the fact that I was not like everyone else, and rather than trying to bend myself to fit in, I decided to stand up and be myself and, as my father had encouraged me, to do my best at the things I enjoyed.”

It also taught her that she could choose how she would respond to life’s challenges, a lesson put to the test when a dibilitating knee injury ended her dancing dream before it began. Rather than give in to despair, she followed the advise of her head mistress and switched to acting. Shortly after this, Joyce Frankenberg became “Jane Seymour” and her career as an actress began.