Jane Oaker

Wilhelmina Dorothy Peper, born June 17, 1878, in St. Louis, Missouri, performed professionally under the name Jane Oaker and built a career as an American theatre actress spanning more than two decades on Broadway. She was the daughter of Christian C. Peper, a wealthy tobacco manufacturer. Oaker pursued formal training at Vassar College and the New York School of Dramatic Art before entering the profession. She died on January 15, 1960, in St. Louis, and was buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery.

Oaker made her stage debut in 1900, playing Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream. By 1903 she had established the Jane Oaker Stock Company, and in 1908 she starred in Clyde Fitch's comedy Girls, which toured nationally. Her Broadway career ran from 1904 to 1927 and encompassed a wide range of productions. Early credits included The Pit and The Pillars of Society, both in 1904, followed by The Silver Girl in 1907. She appeared in Love Among the Lions and The Importance of Being Earnest in 1910, then Cousin Lucy in 1915. Her longest-running Broadway engagement came with Lightnin', in which she appeared from 1918 to 1921. Her final Broadway credit was Los Angeles, which ran from 1927 to 1928. That same year she also appeared on the London stage in The Butter and Egg Man.

Oaker reflected candidly on the advantages her family's wealth provided in launching her theatrical career, writing that a substantial bank account was of the greatest importance in advancing a young woman in the profession, and that access to imported clothing could secure roles requiring little more than an elegant wardrobe.

In 1907 the New York Times reported that Oaker intervened to save a five-year-old child from an oncoming car on Broadway. In 1924 she sustained injuries as a passenger in an automobile accident in San Francisco. On a personal level, Oaker married actor Hale Hamilton in 1901. The couple divorced in 1912, after which Hamilton married actress Myrtle Tannehill.