Jan Sterling

Jan Sterling, born Jane Sterling Adriance on April 3, 1921, in New York City, was an American actress whose work spanned film, television, and stage across four decades. She was the daughter of Eleanor Ward Adriance and William Allen Adriance Jr., an architect and advertising executive, and grew up alongside a younger sister, Ann "Mimi" Adriance, who became a model and businesswoman. Raised in a wealthy household, Sterling attended private schools before her family relocated to Europe and South America. In London she studied at Fay Compton's dramatic school and received instruction from private tutors in both London and Paris before returning to Manhattan as a teenager.

Sterling launched her acting career in 1938 under variations of her given name, including "Jane Adriance" and "Jane Sterling," making her Broadway debut that year as Chris Faringdon in Bachelor Born. During the summer of 1939 she performed in the stock company at Elitch Theatre, the oldest summer stock theater in the country, alongside leading lady Jane Wyatt. She continued working on Broadway through the 1940s, appearing in productions including When We Were Married, This Rock, and The Rugged Path, and later in Once for the Asking, This, Too, Shall Pass, the comedy Present Laughter, and The November People, with her Broadway activity extending from 1938 through 1978. It was reportedly at Ruth Gordon's insistence that she settled on the stage name Jan Sterling.

Sterling made her film debut in 1947's Tycoon, billed as Jane Darian, followed by a prominent supporting role in Johnny Belinda in 1948. Prior to her most active film period she joined the Actors Studio. Throughout the 1950s she appeared in a substantial number of films, including Caged, Mystery Street, and Union Station in 1950; The Mating Season and Ace in the Hole in 1951, the latter a Billy Wilder production in which she played the opportunistic wife opposite Kirk Douglas; Flesh and Fury in 1952; The High and the Mighty in 1954; Female on the Beach in 1955; and High School Confidential in 1958. Though frequently cast as hard-edged characters, she took on a sympathetic role in Sky Full of Moon in 1952. Her performance in The High and the Mighty earned her a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress as well as a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1954. Later that year she traveled to Britain to portray Julia in the 1956 film adaptation of George Orwell's 1984, doing so while several months pregnant.

Sterling also maintained an active television presence during the 1950s and 1960s, appearing in multiple anthology series and guest roles. Her television credits include the title character in "The Annie Griffith Story" on Wagon Train in 1959, "The Selena Hartnell Story" on the same series in 1961, a guest role on Riverboat, the role of Dianne Jordan in a 1960 episode of Bonanza, Nurse Murdoch in a 1963 episode of ABC's Breaking Point, and an appearance in a 1967 episode of NBC's The Road West. In 1950 she was cast as Ruth on The Marshal of Gunsight Pass. She also appeared in two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, in 1958 and 1961, and in a 1962 episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Beginning in late 1968, she portrayed the conniving Miss Foss on the daytime serial The Guiding Light. Following her appearance in the 1969 film The Minx, Sterling reduced her film and television work while continuing to perform on stage. She returned to television in 1979 to play the wife of President Herbert Hoover in Backstairs at the White House, and in 1981 made her final film appearance as Walter Matthau's wife in First Monday in October.

Sterling was married twice. Her first marriage, to actor John Merivale in 1941, ended in divorce seven years later. She married actor Paul Douglas in 1950 and remained with him until his death in 1959. During the 1970s she entered a lasting personal relationship with Sam Wanamaker, who was based primarily in the United Kingdom. After nearly two decades of professional inactivity, she made a public appearance at the Cinecon Film Festival in Los Angeles in 2001. Her later years were marked by diabetes, a broken hip, and a series of strokes. Her son died of heart failure in December 2003 at the age of 48. Sterling died on March 26, 2004, at the age of 82, at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.