Jan Sterling

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 welltodo 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 Comptons 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 Orwells 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 longrunning 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 Sterlings 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 longlasting personal relationship with Sam Wanamaker Jan Sterling died in 2004 in Los Angeles California aged 82