Jane Adams (Actress) Biography
Jane Adams (Actress) Biography – Jane Adams, sometimes known as Betty Jane Bierce, was an American actress who worked in radio, film, and television throughout the 1940s and 1950s.
| Name | Jane Adams |
| Date of Birth | August 7, 1918 |
| Died | May 21, 2014 |
| Nationality | American |
| Gender | Female |
| Profession/Occupation | Actress |
| Net worth | $500,000 |
| Spouse | L.C.H Smith (m. 1940; d. 1943) Thomas Turnage (m. 1945; died 2000) |
Jane Adams (Actress) Background
Jane Adams (Actress) Background – Jane Adams was born in San Antonio, Texas, to Mr. and Mrs. Mason Bierce, but her family relocated to California when she was two years old.
Jane Adams (Actress) Education
Jane Adams (Actress) Education – She studied violin and acting in high school, and she was chosen to be the concert mistress of Los Angeles’ all-city high school orchestra. She was offered a full scholarship to Juilliard, which she declined in order to study at the Pasadena Playhouse for several years.
Jane Adams (Actress) Career
Jane Adams (Actress) Career – She began her career after the Playhouse with Lux Radio Theatre and subsequently with the Harry Conover Modeling Agency, where she earned the moniker “Poni.”
This was ostensibly owing to her passion for horses, but it was actually done to give her a more distinctive stage name.
“I was given that name at the Harry Conover Modeling Agency,” Adams stated in the book Westerns Women: Interviews with 50 Leading Ladies of Movie and Television Westerns from the 1930s to the 1960s. I’m not sure why!) In 1945, she resumed using her given name.
Her change of name from Poni Adams to Jane Adams was influenced by military personnel. “GI JANE – Jane Adams — formerly Poni Adams — holds some of the 32,851 letters her publicity agent said got from GIs after she pleaded for help in choosing a new name,” according to an image published in newspapers in 1946.
In 1942, Adams made his first appearance on screen in the short film So You Want to Quit Smoking. She is best known for her role as Nina in House of Dracula (1945), but she also has the distinction of appearing in early adaptations of two major DC Comics franchises: Batman (where she played Vicki Vale in the second Batman serial, Batman and Robin), and Superman (where she played a character in the first Superman television series).
In Norfolk, Virginia, on July 27, 1940, Adams married Ensign J.C.H. Smith, a United States Navy pilot. On September 15, 1943, he perished in Hawaii during World War II.
Jane Adams (Actress) Husband
Jane Adams (Actress) Husband – She married Thomas K. Turnage, an Army lieutenant who went on to become a decorated major general, on July 14, 1945 in Hollywood, California.
Turnage received the Distinguished Service Medal and the Bronze Star for his service in the Korean War. During Ronald Reagan’s presidency, he was the last administrator of the Veterans Administration before it became a cabinet agency. Turnage and Adams had two children together.
Jane Adams (Actress) Death
Jane Adams (Actress) Death – Adams died on May 21, 2014, in Bellingham, Washington, at the age of 95. In Arlington National Cemetery, she was buried alongside her husband (as Betty J. Turnage).
