By Mary Wozniak
mwozniak@news-press.com
Originally posted on January 29, 2006
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SEYMOUR
Featured artist at Naples fest
Actress Jane Seymour's art career is blossoming, while her acting career has found a whole new audience with the success of her role in the movie the "Wedding Crashers."

Both art and acting opportunities abound as the actress also puts the finishing touches on what has been a lengthy but loving task — restoring her 10th century historic manor house near Bath, England.

Seymour took time out of her busy schedule to come to Southwest Florida this weekend for The Naples Winter Wine Festival and to kick off her one-woman art exhibit Saturday night at the Olde Florida Gallerie at 13499 Cleveland Ave. in Fort Myers.

The exhibit of 37 original paintings can be seen through Tuesday, before gallery staff have to pack it up and send it off to another show.

Seymour has shown her art in the area before. "I've actually been working with her quite a while," said Mike Windfeldt, owner of the Olde Florida Gallerie. "So we became friends. We're the ones who introduced her to the winter wine festival people."

Special to news-press.com
From left, Denise Cobb, a wine festival trustee and founder; TV’s Judge Judy Scheindlin; Mary Susan Clinton, a festival trustee; and actress Jane Seymour celebrate a bid made for a Rolls Royce 2005 during the Naples Winter Wine Festival auction at the Naples Ritz Golf Resort.
Seymour referred to the festival in a phone interview last week as a phenomenon she had never seen anywhere else in the world.

"It was wonderful to see people enjoy giving on such a level," she said about the fundraiser for children's charities.

Seymour was asked by festival organizers at the prior wine auction if she would be the featured artist for the 2006 festival.

Seymour said she couldn't believe they were talking to her.

"When they asked me and I was sitting right next to Mr. (Robert) Rauschenberg at the time, and I was looking over my shoulder to see if it was someone else," she said.

Rauschenberg is often called the world's greatest living contemporary artist. He also has served as the featured artist for a previous wine festival.

Seymour created a series of circus-themed watercolors for the festival's auction catalog, in line with the festival's circus theme. She also painted one of her signature hibiscus flowers, which was part of one of the auction lots.

Seymour paints everything from watercolors to oils and also does some sculpture. Her subjects are usually children, landscapes, still lifes and florals.

She also is one of six artists chosen to create posters for the U.S. Olympic Team in Torino, Italy.

Additionally, Seymour will be seen soon on television spots promoting heart health for women. She has created a series of four paintings featuring ethnically diverse women wearing red dresses to emphasize the point. She will be one of the women depicted, Seymour said.

She's become somewhat of an industry unto herself, a la Martha Stewart, with an entire collection of home furnishings and a clothing line for children.

Seymour has written four books: three for adults and one for children.

When she's not painting, designing clothes or linens or writing, the actress is enjoying the current success of her husband, actor/producer/director James Keach.

He is co-producer of "Walk the Line," based on the life of singer Johnny Cash. The film won the Golden Globe for best musical comedy.

Keach and Seymour were close friends with Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash.

"It was just the most fantastic day," Seymour said of the Golden Globe Awards. "We made this film, because Johnny Cash asked him to make it ... This is a man and a woman who were very close to us and who had a very special connection to us."

Keach made a film "that has already become an extraordinary legacy to their love," Seymour said.

Her own recent role as a mature sex kitten in the summer 2005 hit "Wedding Crashers" introduced Seymour to a whole new younger audience who were completely unfamiliar with her roles as a former James Bond girl or as the lead in the long-running TV series, "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman."

When she auditioned for the role, the young filmmakers who made the movie were unfamiliar with her previous work.

"I came in and auditioned just like a beginning actress," she said. "It's given me a whole new career."

Soon she will open in a new movie, "Blind Guy Driving."

"It's a wonderful romantic comedy. It makes you laugh out loud," she said.

Then she starts shooting a new sitcom for Warner Brothers called "Modern Men" in mid-March.

"I'm playing a life coach to three young guys who are figuring out how to date and fall in love with women," she said.

"I'm having more fun than I deserve at this time in life."