Jane Adams, that beautiful starlet who graced the silver screen during the late 1940s and early ’50s, made her mark in Hollywood appearing in many film genres, including Westerns. Recently, Ms. Adams reminisced with us at Wildest Westerns about her life and times in Hollywood.
Jane was three years old when her family moved west to Los Angeles from San Antonio, Texas. As an only child, she received a lot of attention from her parents. Jane remembers her mother giving her encyclopedias to read as a young girl. Modestly, she says, “I had a very high I.Q., and it wasn’t because of my brains. It was because my mother had given me all these facts as a youngster.” Jane was certainly a well-rounded young lady and leaned towards studying music and theater while in high school. As a violinist, Jane was the Concert Mistress of the All-City High School Orchestra in Los Angeles. She also participated in many local Shakespearean contests.
When Jane graduated from Beverly Hills High School, she was offered music scholarships at Juilliard and USC, but her heart was in the theater. Jane instead, chose an apprenticeship at the Pasadena Playhouse, where she received her theater arts degree and studied with the likes of Dana Andrews and Robert Preston. “I received a great deal of training and stage experience at the Playhouse,” she explains. “We had three stages going at all times, so we had a lot of opportunity to act—in everything from Roman Comedies and Greek Tragedies up to the Modern Theater.” Jane says it was a thorough training that……………….