Jada Rowland

Jada Rowland is an American actress born on February 23, 1943, in Staten Island, New York, into a family of actors and artists. She has worked across Broadway, television daytime soap operas, and prime-time television throughout her career. Her siblings are actor Jeffrey Rowland and actress Gigi Anderson, both of whom also pursued performing careers. Jeffrey Rowland played Dr. Dan Stewart on As the World Turns, the same show on which Jada appeared, though the two were on the series during different years. Gigi Anderson portrayed Peggy Bennett on The Secret Storm during the same period Rowland was a cast member of that show.

Rowland's Broadway career spanned from 1949 to 1958 and included productions such as Sunday Breakfast, The House of Bernarda Alba, That Lady, The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker, and The Cold Wind and the Warm, among others.

Her most enduring television role was Amy Ames Britton Kincaid on The Secret Storm, a character she played for the majority of the soap opera's twenty-year run. Unlike the common soap opera practice of rapid aging, in which a younger actor is replaced by an older one to advance a character's age quickly, Amy Ames grew up in real time under Rowland's portrayal. Rowland also played Dr. Susan Stewart on As the World Turns and became the second actress to take on the role of Carolee Simpson Aldrich, R.N. on The Doctors, joining that cast on September 7, 1976, and remaining with the show through its final episode on December 31, 1982. She later appeared on the prime-time serial The Hamptons. Rowland was invited to audition for the Dustin Hoffman film Tootsie, which featured a fictional soap opera called Southwest General, but she declined the opportunity.

In addition to her acting work, Rowland has illustrated several published children's books. These include Bringing the Farmhouse Home, written by Gloria Whelan and published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers in 1992; Miss Tizzy, written by Libba Moore Gray and published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers in 1993; The Statue of Liberty, written by Lucille Recht Penner and published by Random House in 1995; and Raising the Roof, written by Ronald Kidd and published by Habitat for Humanity International in 1995.