When executives at CBS were
seeking a girl to play Jane's Medicine \Woman character, as
a child, they chose Katie.
So that Shaun didn't feel left out she let him dress in costume
on set.
Jane laughs as she explains, "Shaun is the one most likely
to be an actor. He loves acting and he's always putting on
puppet shows, doing imitationsplaying instruments, and generally
showing off... it's terrible."
"Although Katie was very excited to work on the show-
when she grows up she is more interested in being a soccer
player! She's an excellent player and it's not out of the
realm of possibility, that by the time she is older, there
might be a ladies professional league."
Jane called 'time' on her 10 year marriage to property developer,
Flynn, 42,last summer after she discovered to her horror that
he had squandered all her money. She says, "I have debts
to pay. We were heavily invested in realestate but unfortunately
real estate isn't selling and the banks are demanding that
they be paid."
"Im the one that has to work flat out to dig us out of
trouble."
I had no idea what was happening until I finally discovered
how bad the situation was. But I'm not the sort of person
who lies down with their arms and legs in the air screaming
'it's not fair'
"When the chips are down, I get going. I realized I had
financial responsibilities. David had no way of making money,
so it was
down to me. I'm not bitter towards him, I'm not that sort
of person."
"Life goes on and he sees our children every day. He
lives less
than a milefrom our house in Santa Barbara and he has breakfast
with us every morning. We still do a lot of things as a family-David
and I believe this is very important for the kids."
"I am really very proud of how David and I have handled
things.
This is not some horrible big fight. This is two people trying
to cope with change."
© Hello Magazine March 21, 1992
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Following her enormously successful mini series
Memories of Midnight, Jane threw herself into a frighteningly hectic
schedule she says. "I often work a lot, but since all the trouble
happened last year, I have had to work especially hard and I did
three films between the summer and Christmas.
It looks as if I may be working pretty much constantly for the
rest of the year. If Medicine Woman is a success, the network
plans to make it into a weekly series starting this fall.
"It was strange, Jane recalls, when they heard that I was
interested in the part, they gave me twelve hours to decide. So
I potentially committed five years of my life on a snap decision.
But I really identified with it because I'm a doctor's daughter."
Jane has also just sealed the deals on two more television films
to be made in the next 5 months."In May, I'll be doing a kind
of steamy psychological thriller called Sunstroke, which
I found and submitted to the USA network. Then in June and July,
the Disney channel are doing their version of Heidi- and
I'm going to play the governess. Hopefully after that, I'll be busy
on the Medicine Woman series."
Jane admits with the banks' constant demands loominig over her
she has not spent too much time weighing up the pros and cons of
the projects she has agreed to. "Because of the necessity to
make money, I haven't really had the luxury of choice," she
says.
"From the start, I took the attitude that I had to work that
day and every day to pay off my debts. But the interesting thing
is that a lot of the things I've done have been incredibly successful-
especially, Memories of Midnight. So maybe it was just
as well that I wasn't able to take parts purely on the grounds of
my own artistic judgements."
Although Jane has learned to shrug off the more exaggerated reports
about her life, she never ceases to worry about the effect the headlines
have on her children. "It's crazy what the papers say
about me sometimes," says the angry actress, who since moving
to America in 1976 has suffered the slings and arrows of the tabloid
press on both sides of the Atlantic.
"In the floods they had me nearly dead. I can't stop them if
this is how they think they sell papers. When they lie, I'd like
to be able to sue. But sometimes it gets so out of hand, I dont'
know where to start!"
"This whole thing with the divorce has become completely insane.
It really hurts my kids, and nothing upsets me more than to see
my kids upset."
But all in all the elegant Ms. Seymour, who despite her 16 years
in California still has a perfect English accent, is not complaining.
Far from it.
"I do feel I have triumphed over adversity," she says.
I am happy, my kids seems happy and I'm branching off into new directions
that I wouldn't have dreamed of a year ago. "
"I should be executive producing-Sunstroke and CBS
have told me that if the Medicine Woman series goes ahead, I'll
be directing some of the episodes. I have come through some very
difficult times- but out of adversity some really wonderful things
have happened."
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