After 11 years of marriage, numerous projects, and child-rearing, Jane Seymour and James Keach are stronger than ever.

Jane Seymour and James Keach don't believe in wasting time.

She's an acclaimed actress who also paints, designs clothes, writes books, and is active in several high-profile charities. He's an accomplished director, producer, and writer who also acts on stage and screen. They also happen to be the parents of 8-year-old twin boys and have three other children from previous marriages.

Unbelievably busy they may be, but their key to balancing it all is enjoying a thriving personal and professional partnership that knows no bounds.

"We work together in many areas literally every day of our lives," says Seymour, the star of the beloved series Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. "As a team, we have moved on from just acting to producing to directing and being involved in all aspects of the film business. We are trying our best to make the kind of movies that we believe in."

The two are being honored by Chapman University this month as the recipients of its 2004 Lifetime Achievement of the Arts Award. It's an award given in recognition of people in the arts and entertainment world whose body of work and presence exemplify commitment and excellence, and who challenge themselves to reach for their dreams.

"We're artists at heart, and we reflect how we see the world in our unique way," Keach says. "We are raising kids together, but also doing a lot of movies together and have several businesses that we've developed. It's a gift, and I'm so incredibly grateful for it."

Past recipients of the Chapman award include Karl Malden, Natalie Cole, and Gregory Hines.
"It's very thrilling," Seymour says. "Chapman is an amazing university with an amazing film program. I've been in the film business for a long time, and I hope I haven't finished. I feel I have more to achieve."

Seymour, eternally youthful at 53, first made an international splash just over three decades ago as Solitaire in the 1973 James Bond movie Live and Let Die. Working in her native Britain, she set her sights on Hollywood.

"When I came to America in 1976, I was told that if I could lose my English accent, I could have great success in this country," she recalls.

When she first arrived, Seymour says she had only $500 to her name and gave herself six weeks to land an acting gig. She got one: a lead role in the 1976 television miniseries Captain and the Kings, which landed Seymour her first Emmy nomination. It was nonstop work from then on in feature films like Somewhere in Time opposite Christopher Reeve and Lassiter, in which she starred with Tom Selleck.

"Somewhere in Time has a very special place for me," Seymour says. "It doesn't matter how well-written a love story is, unless there's chemistry, a love story doesn't work. It's just a sweet little movie that just captures people and gets you. I'm very happy to have been a part of that." But it was in television movies and miniseries where Seymour had her greatest success, landing many plumb parts and earning great acclaim along the way.

She won an Emmy Award for her portrayal of opera legend Maria Callas in the television film Onassis: The Richest Man in the World and was nominated for an Emmy again for her performance in the miniseries War and Remembrance. Seymour also took home the Golden Globe Award in 1982 for the miniseries East of Eden.

"At the end of the day, it's nice to have that acknowledgement. But that's not what life is about," she says of her award wins. "It is thrilling to be acknowledged, though."

Not all her great parts won Emmys but they have been memorable all the same. Seymour played Duchess of Windsor Wallis Simpson in The Woman He Loved, Marie Antoinette in the French miniseries La Francaise Revolution, Ethne Eustace in The Four Feathers, and Marguerite St. Just in The Scarlet
Pimpernel. Her résumé of miniseries also includes The Awakening Land, The Sun Also Rises, Crossings, and Memories of Midnight.

While Seymour was building this body of work, her future husband was doing the same as he appeared in more than 50 projects, including The Razor's Edge, Comes a Horseman, and Wildcats on the big screen, and in many television projects, highlighted by The Long Riders, which was a family affair co-starring brother Stacy Keach. James Keach, who played Jesse James, also executive produced and co-wrote The Long Riders.

"When I was in college, my father wanted my brother to be a lawyer and me to be a doctor," he says. "He did not want either of us to go into show business. He said you have to have a very thick skin and that it's very hard to succeed."

But once Keach was enrolled in Yale Drama School, he was hooked and quickly had the support of his brother, who felt he was a natural actor. It was the early 1970s, and he was soon doing guest spots on such popular shows as Starsky and Hutch, Police Woman, The Rookies, Kung Fu, and Kojak.

Keach had received classical training at the New York Shakespeare Festival under director Joseph Papp and went on to perform in numerous stage productions in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.

"My dad knew that once the bug bit, it lasts a lifetime," he says. "For me, it was always about passion. My problem is that I always wanted to be so many different things."

One of those things was a director, and so over the past 15 years, the 56-year-old Keach has been behind the camera for dozens of projects, including the feature films The Stars Fell on Henrietta and False Identity, scores of television movies, and many episodes of Dr. Quinn. He is also a prolific producer whose credits include the upcoming film Walk the Line, the story of Johnny Cash starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon.

It was the 1992 film Sunstroke that first brought the couple together.

"I had been directing for a few years and Jane's agent called up and asked if I'd be interested in directing her in a movie," Keach recalls. "I knew who she was and had seen the Bond movie, but said I hadn't seen a lot of her work."

Shortly after that conversation, more than two dozen tapes of Seymour's work in television and film arrived.

"I discovered that she is a remarkable actress and said that I'd love to direct her," he remembers.

At the time, Keach was married to Mimi Maynard, and Seymour was recently divorced from David Flynn, the father of her son Sean and daughter Kate. Keach has a son, Kalen, from his marriage to Holly Collins.

The relationship between Keach and Seymour quickly grew close, and after filming of Sunstroke ended, they stayed in touch.

"We sort of hit it off immediately," Seymour remembers. "We started working on the movie together, and discovered that we liked spending time and talking together. We had deep and meaningful discussion on every subject by the time we finished the movie, and we realized we wanted to be together. He moved out of his previous life and said, 'Here I am.'"

But before they could begin a new life together, Seymour was off to shoot a movie in Australia, so they were forced to keep in touch via fax machine.

"We wooed each other through writing, and that was it," she says. "We're going on 13 years."

They were married on May 15, 1993, in a lavish ceremony attended by more than 350 guests. Since their first movie together, Keach has not only directed Seymour in many episodes of her series, but in the two Dr. Quinn television movies that came after the series was canceled, and the dramas Enslavement: The True Story of Fanny Kremble, Murder in the Mirror, Marriage of Convenience, and Passion for Justice: The Hazel Brannon Story. He is next set to direct his wife in the feature film Calvin's Dream.

Since Keach is usually behind the camera these days, the 1998 television movie The New Swiss Family Robinson provided them with an opportunity to star opposite each other with Seymour as Anna Robinson and Keach in the role of Jack Robinson. The couple say they have 10 "really good projects" that they are hoping to do in the near future.

"I think it would be wonderful to do a series in the future, but it would be wonderful to have the ability to finance and make our own movies," Keach says. "The idea would be to have enough financial backing to have creative control and to make movies that are very meaningful to us. It was great how meaningful Dr. Quinn was to us."

As prolific as she was in television and films, Seymour had never before starred in a TV series until 1993, when she signed on to portray Dr. Michaela "Mike" Quinn, a refined woman from mid-19th century Boston who moves to a Colorado frontier town to start her own medical practice.

"I loved doing it, I really did," Seymour says. "I loved the character and loved what the show was about. I have very, very great memories of it. It was a very happy show."

Throughout the six-year run of the series, it developed a large and devoted fan base that continues today with the show now out on DVD and appearing in reruns on cable television's Hallmark Channel.

Ironically, it was dire financial straights that led Seymour to take on the part that would end up becoming her signature role and bring her even greater fame.

"When I got Dr. Quinn, I was about to declare bankruptcy and was at the lowest ebb of my life," she says. "My agent called all the networks and said, 'Jane will do anything. Now what do you have?' I had always said I'd never do a series."

After receiving a script at 7 p.m., Seymour was told she had to decide by 10 a.m. the next morning whether to accept the role.

"The script absolutely moved me, and I was weeping. I thought it was a beautiful story," she says. "I said yes the next morning, met the producers at noon, went straight into hair and makeup, and was filming at noon the next day with a five-year contract. It was very physically and emotionally challenging because I was in every scene, every day. The first couple of years, I would be in all three stories."

Seymour says the production crew on the show became like family, and she has continued to work with many of those same crew members on subsequent projects. There was much outrage among a very loyal fan base at the cancellation of Dr. Quinn by CBS, especially since the show still had strong ratings in its sixth season.

"I was really sorry to see it go that abruptly, it was so randomly canceled at the last minute," Seymour says. "I think it had another year in it at least. We were going to take on some really interesting stories."

But the most significant production for Seymour and Keach during the Dr. Quinn years was not any particular episode, but the birth of their twin sons, John Stacy Keach and Kristopher Steven Keach in late 1993.

Only weeks later, Seymour caused a sensation at the Golden Globe Awards when she showed up in a glamorous, form-fitting red gown. While the perception was that Seymour had taken on some kind of extreme diet regiment to appear so slim and stunning, the truth was she had experienced a difficult
pregnancy and grown quite thin by the time she gave birth to her babies. "I hadn't thought about the Golden Globes or dresses," she recalls. "I had just done a photo shoot, and they brought the dress. I thought nothing more of it until I won. I said I had just had twins a few weeks before, and people went nuts."

Becoming parents again in their 40s gave both Seymour and Keach a new outlook on parenthood and at mid-life.

"It's the greatest gift," Keach says. "When you are younger and have kids and struggling to make ends meet and consumed with Hollywood, you don't realize that the priority should be your kids. You only have a few years, and they are grown up and gone. We knew this.

"We've been very blessed to have great careers, but we are 10 times more blessed to have children," he adds. "These two miracles in our life at this late stage is a real gift. It keeps you current."

Says Seymour: "It's fun having the different generations—the twentysomethings and post-college plans, and we're trying to get the 8-year-olds off somewhere."

The antics of their twins inspired the couple to write a children's book together called This One and That One, which is based on John and Kristopher.

"We wanted to write whimsical tales based on the adventures of our little toddler children," says Seymour, who also has written several books on her own, including last year's Remarkable Changes: Turning Life's Challenges into Opportunities.

Off screen, Seymour is the official spokeswoman for UNICEF, the international ambassador for Childhelp USA, and the honorary chairwoman for City Hearts.

"We also share a lot of charity work, which is something Jane has always done," Keach says. "She brought me into a world that is very meaningful to me—the American Red Cross, UNICEF. Jane is never-ending in her quest to help children, and she has gotten me involved in this."

"I really felt I didn't want to be someone who just wrote checks and showed up at glamorous events," says Seymour. "I wanted to be hands on. I wanted to use what I felt I uniquely had."

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