On paper Jane Seymour can sound a little dauntingly perfect. Mother of six, professional speake,r painter, author, home-funishings- line designer, fund raiser,stunningly beautiful actress. In reality, she's just plain inspiring with a down-to-earth,bustling Britishness about her, and an an infectious energy>

Yet after 35 years of acting success why run so fast? Call it gratitude, and keeping a promise. As Jane's the first to admit she's, dealt with plenty of adversity.

"I unfortunately have had three divorces, Seymour explains, lost all my money at one point through a divorce, lost my father to cancer, lost my own health on three occasions where l nearly died- once where l actually left my body- I've had back surgery, all kinds of things,"

The 5-foot-4- inch brunet's life-changing moment came in 1988 in Madrid, when she received an antibiotic shot for severe bronchitis and went into anaphylactic shock. 'I saw this white light, she recalls, "and I was very calm, and I was in the top corner of the room looking down at myself. There I, was lying on this bed half naked, with huge syringes in my backside. This guy was screaming, 'Emergency! Emergency! and trying to get ambulances, trying to resuscitate me." She watched herself thinking, "'that's really weird! That's me, Who is this? And that's when she made the promise.

"I remember saying, 'God if you exist, I will never doubt your presence. And I'm going to just be the best person I can possibly be for the rest of the time I have life.' Because I want to give back. I'm so grateful to be alive. to be back in my body and have use of it."

After an ordeal like that, she explains, you're a little bit excessively grateful for life, and you don't want to
waste a minute of it. "

Jane's, philosophy is to embrace damage, not fight it. She sees life like a giant ocean wave that crests and then crashes, always with the same magnificence, regrouping, moving in a circular fashion. This wisdom about life's, natural ups and downs, has been engraved in her over time.

From day one, I realized it wasn't about what you did easily in life. It's about what you have had to overcome." `

When Jane started school, she was asked to stand aside from most of her classmates with a group of other children. It was not, as she first thought, because she was special, but because she had a speech impediment and flat feet.

"I used to say," Awound the wugged wocks the wugged wascals wan."Yet she now does voice-overs for cartoons and documentaries, ballet school fixed her feet, and she even danced with the Kirov Ballet at Covent Garden, although knee injuriesat age 17 sidelined her chances for a professional dancing career.

Jane''s mother Mieka 91, worked with the Red Cross