Acting Career
In 1969, Seymour appeared uncredited in her first film, Richard Attenborough's Oh! What a Lovely War. In 1970, Seymour appeared in her first major film role in the war drama The Only Way. She played Lillian Stein, a Jewish woman seeking shelter from Nazi persecution. In 1973, she gained her first major television role as Emma Callon in the successful 1970s series The Onedin Line. During this time, she appeared as female lead Prima in the two-part television miniseries Frankenstein: The True Story. She also appeared as Winston Churchill's lover Pamela Plowden in Young Winston, produced by her father-in-law Richard Attenborough.
In 1973, Seymour achieved international fame in her role as Bond girl Solitaire in the James Bond film Live and Let Die. IGN ranked her as 10th in a Top 10 Bond Babes list. In 1975, Seymour was cast as Princess Farah in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, the third part of Ray Harryhausen's Sinbad trilogy. The film was not released until its stop motion animation sequences had been completed in 1977. In 1978, she appeared as Serina in the Battlestar Galactica film, and then later in the first two episodes of the television series that followed.
In 1980, Seymour returned to the big screen in the comedy Oh Heavenly Dog opposite Chevy Chase, and as Elise McKenna in the romantic fantasy Somewhere in Time opposite Christopher Reeve. In 1981, she appeared in the television film East of Eden, based on the novel by John Steinbeck. Her portrayal of main antagonist Cathy Ames won her a Golden Globe. In 1982, she appeared in The Scarlet Pimpernel with Anthony Andrews and Ian McKellen. In 1984, Seymour appeared nude in the film Lassiter, co-starring Tom Selleck, but the film was a box office flop. In 1987, Seymour was the subject of a pictorial in Playboy magazine, although she did not actually pose nude.
In 1988, Seymour appeared as the female lead in the 12-part television miniseries War and Remembrance, in which she played Natalie Henry, an American Jewish woman trapped in Europe during World War II. The series was based on a successful novel by Herman Wouk, and is noted for its accurate, and graphic, depiction of the Holocaust. In 1989, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, Seymour appeared in the television film La révolution française, filmed in both French and English. Seymour appeared as the doomed French queen, Marie Antoinette; the actress's two children, Katherine and Sean, appeared as the queen's children.
In the 1990s, Seymour earned popular and critical praise for her role as Dr. Michaela "Mike" Quinn in the television series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and its television sequels (1993–2001). Her work on the series earned her a second Golden Globe Award. While working on the series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, she met her fourth husband, actor-director James Keach.
In the 2000s, Seymour continued to work primarily in television. In 2004, she made several guest appearances in the WB Network series, Smallville, playing Genevieve Teague, the wealthy, scheming mother of Jason Teague (Jensen Ackles). In 2005, Seymour returned to the big screen in the comedy Wedding Crashers, playing Kathleen Cleary, wife of fictional United States Secretary of the Treasury William Cleary, played by Christopher Walken. In spring 2006, she appeared in the short-lived WB series Modern Men. Later that year, Seymour guest-starred as a law-school-professor on an episode of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, and as a wealthy client on the Fox legal drama, Justice. In 2007, she guest-starred in the ABC sitcom, In Case of Emergency, which starred Lori Loughlin and Jonathan Silverman. She also appeared in ITV's Marple: Ordeal By Innocence, based on the Agatha Christie novel. She was a contestant on season five of the US reality show, Dancing with the Stars; she finished in sixth place, along with her partner, Tony Dovolani. In "One Life to Lose" Jane Seymour guest starred in a soap opera-themed storyline of the ABC sitcom Castle.
In recent years, Seymour returned to film work, appeared in the Hallmark Channel film Dear Prudence (2008) with Jamey Sheridan and Ryan Cartwright, the romantic comedy Love, Wedding, Marriage (2011) with Mandy Moore, and the Hallmark Movie Channel film Lake Effects (2012) with Scottie Thompson and Madeline Zima.
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