Jane Baxter

Jane Baxter (9 September 1909 – 13 September 1996) was a British actress born Feodora Kathleen Alice Forde in Bremen, Germany. Her father was an Anglo-Irish naval engineer who died when she was six months old, and her mother, Hedwig von Dieskau, was of German noble background and had served as lady-in-waiting to Princess Charlotte, sister of Kaiser Wilhelm II. The family castle stands on the outskirts of Halle in Saxony-Anhalt. Baxter was named after Charlotte's daughter, Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen, who died by suicide in 1945. She was raised by her mother alongside an elder sister and a younger brother, and both sisters attended the Italia Conti School in Woking, England.

Baxter came to London at the age of six and trained in acting at the Italia Conti Academy. At fifteen, she made her London stage debut at the Adelphi Theatre in 1925, playing an urchin in the short-lived musical Love's Prisoner alongside her brother-in-law, Harry Welchman. Her career advanced significantly in 1928 when she stepped in as Peter Pan, understudying Jean Forbes-Robertson in the role. It was on the advice of the play's author, J. M. Barrie, that Feodora Forde adopted the stage name Jane Baxter, after which Barrie affectionately referred to her as his stage god-daughter. Writer Ian Hay subsequently spotted her and put her forward for the lead in A Damsel in Distress, a play he had co-written with P. G. Wodehouse.

Her screen debut came in 1930 with Bed and Breakfast, and she went on to appear in a succession of films throughout the decade, among them Blossom Time with Richard Tauber in 1934. In 1935 she joined the repertory company at the Liverpool Playhouse, where the leading actor was Michael Redgrave, who described her as a delightful actress. She later became godmother to his daughter Vanessa. That same year she appeared in several West End productions, and in 1937 she achieved further London success with George and Margaret, which ran for two years. In 1939 she married Arthur Montgomery, a businessman, with whom she had two daughters and one son. Her first marriage, to racing driver Clive Dunfee in 1930, had ended when she witnessed his death in a race at Brooklands two years later.

In 1947, Baxter appeared on Broadway in The Importance of Being Earnest, co-starring with John Gielgud and Margaret Rutherford, in which she played the role of Cicely Cardew. The following year she took on the role of Viola in Twelfth Night at the Old Vic, a production that marked the stage directing debut of Alec Guinness. In 1952 she appeared in Dial M for Murder, which ran for a year, and she continued working in theatre for roughly two more decades. Her final West End appearance was in A Voyage Round My Father, which co-starred Michael Redgrave.

Baxter's television work included plays and series such as Upstairs, Downstairs, and her last screen appearance was in the 1992 documentary Missing Believed Lost, in which Sir John Mills also appeared. Her stage career spanned half a century across London, Broadway, and regional theatre. She died on 13 September 1996, four days after her eighty-seventh birthday, from stomach cancer.