Jane Holzer

Jane Holzer, born Jane Brukenfeld on October 23, 1940, in Palm Beach, Florida, is an American model, actress, film producer, art collector, and real estate investor. She is widely recognized as one of the first Warhol superstars and appeared on Broadway in 1979 in Got Tu Go Disco.

Holzer grew up in Palm Beach as the daughter of Carl Brukenfeld, a real estate investor whose wealth derived from Florida properties in Miami and West Palm Beach. She was raised in a Jewish household and attended Palm Beach High School before enrolling at Finch Junior College in Manhattan, which she left deliberately to pursue modeling. In 1962, she married Leonard Holzer, an heir to a New York real estate fortune whose developments were noted for incorporating art projects, including at the Smith Haven Mall.

Her modeling career gained momentum in London in 1963, when photographer David Bailey photographed her. The following year, the November 1964 issue of British Vogue featured her on its cover, and Vogue magazine's October 1964 issue highlighted her in its pages. Diana Vreeland, then editor of Vogue, described her as "the most contemporary girl I know." Women's Wear Daily named her one of New York's "fashion revolutionaries" in 1966, alongside figures including Edie Sedgwick, Yves Saint Laurent, and Mary Quant. A newspaper columnist gave her the nickname "Baby Jane," a reference to the 1962 film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Holzer was introduced to Andy Warhol in 1964 at a dinner party held at her Park Avenue apartment, an event arranged by British interior designer Nicky Haslam, who also brought Mick Jagger to the gathering. After a subsequent encounter on Madison Avenue, Warhol invited her to appear in his films. She went on to appear in several Warhol productions, including Soap Opera, Couch, and Batman Dracula, all from 1964, as well as Camp in 1965. In 1967, she played herself at a New York party in the pilot episode of the television series Coronet Blue, and that same year released the single "Rapunzel" backed with "Nowhere" on Atco Records, produced by Al Kasha and arranged by Barry Goldberg. She appeared in the independently produced film Ciao! Manhattan in 1972 and co-produced the 1985 film Kiss of the Spider Woman. She was also parodied as Baby Jane Towser in a 1967 episode of Batman, where she was portrayed by Diana Ivarson, and is referenced twice as "Baby Jane" in the 1972 Roxy Music single "Virginia Plain." Tom Wolfe made her the subject of the essay "Girl of the Year" in his 1965 collection The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby.

Her son Charles "Rusty" Holzer was born in 1969. He competed in show jumping for the United States Virgin Islands at the 1992 Summer Olympics, and his wife Ashley Holzer is a dressage rider who won a bronze medal for Canada at the 1988 Summer Olympics. In 2014, the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach mounted an exhibition titled "To Jane, Love Andy" dedicated to Holzer. She became a prominent collector of modern art, assembling works by Warhol, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, and built a significant real estate portfolio in Palm Beach, including co-ownership of the restaurant Le Bilboquet with Philippe Delgrange.