April 4, 2006

By JOANNE KAUFMAN
April 4, 2006

Dr. Phil, look out. That goes double for you, Dr. Ruth and Dr. Deepak. There's a new guru in town, one Dr. Victoria Stangel. A key element of the new WB sitcom "Modern Men," Stangel, a sexy, tart-tongued therapist/life coach played by Jane Seymour, is now seeing patients -- specifically three clueless twenty-something bachelors -- Fridays from 9:30-10 p.m. EDT.

"What makes it wonderful for the audience is that for once we see the inner workings of a man's mind. I give the boys advice and they completely screw it up," laughs Ms. Seymour, 55, best known for her six seasons as the title character on CBS's heart-tugging hit "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman." Her voice vibrating with wonder, she adds, "How can a man screw up something as simple as 'be honest with a woman?'"

To be honest, says Ms. Seymour, it was quite a leap -- across centuries, across genres, across sensibilities, and across state lines -- to go from Dr. Quinn, 19th-century family practitioner of the prairie, to thoroughly modern shrink for a trio of Chicago guys with libidos as big as the Loop.

Still, Ms. Seymour really loves challenges, and if you don't head her off at the pass -- lots of luck -- she's going to go smack into her spiel about how life is a challenge, how challenge is an opportunity, and how all of it is a learning process. She does lots of motivational speeches and has written a book, "Remarkable Changes," on just those topics.

"I'm actually pretty good at giving advice. I'm pretty clear in many areas," says Ms. Seymour cheerfully. "When you've had three divorces and four marriages and six children from different combinations of families and even more children in extended families, all of whom seem to get along, all of whom can go to every function together, somewhere along the line you learn what works and what doesn't work.

"It's all a learning process," she continues. "Everybody has their own way of doing things and goes down their own paths and meets their own challenges." See above.

Ms. Seymour, who made her first splash as Bond girl Solitaire opposite Roger Moore in 1971's "Live and Let Die," is having something of a career renaissance. Once known as queen of the miniseries ("Captain and the Kings" and "War and Remembrance," among other projects), then as the go-to girl for dutiful television bio-dramas (she was the Duchess of Windsor in "The Woman He Loved" and won an Emmy for her portrayal of Maria Callas in "Onassis: The Richest Man in the World"), then typecast as a homespun healer ("network people just said, 'Oh, she's lives in a prairie skirt and carries a stethoscope. Forget about it,'" she recalls), the actress is finally getting to lighten up.

The first notable opportunity came in last summer's "Wedding Crashers," starring Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn; Ms. Seymour played a randy mother-of-the bride. "Believe it or not, I had to audition three times," she says. "They had never seen any of my work other than the James Bond film. As far as they were concerned, for the last 30-something years I had been twiddling my thumbs and they had discovered me. You have to have a sense of humor about it."

A sense of humor was also a handy piece of equipment when it came time to shoot the scene where Ms. Seymour presented herself topless to Mr. Wilson. "I don't know who was more embarrassed -- him or me," she says. "And then I think we just decided it was like the doctor's office. Close your eyes and think of England. It was very funny.

"And of course Vince kept nudging Owen and saying 'are you ready to see more of Seymour, to hold more of Seymour?' And I kept thinking, Vince, that is the oldest joke in the book. Come up with a new one for heaven's sake.'"

In any case, what Mr. Wilson did see was never seen by the movie's wide audiences; they got a load only of the actress's charming vertebrae. "They can keep replaying the DVD back and forth. They're not going to find anything," Ms. Seymour says. "But please don't tell them that if thinking otherwise will accelerate sales of the DVD....Not that I have a piece of the DVD, but it's good for the résumé.

In fact, her résumé is a many splendored thing. A mini-Martha Stewart, Ms. Seymour, in concert with her director-producer husband, James Keach, designs a line of home furnishings -- towels, linens, tableware and accessories -- that's available in some 300 stores nationwide and produces revenue in excess of $15 million a year according to Mr. Keach.

The couple also has a publishing company that does limited-edition prints of Ms. Seymour's watercolors, oils and pastels. Mr. Keach estimates the annual take at well into seven figures. "People say to me, 'Why are you a painter if you're an actress?' Well, I was a painter before I was an actress," says Ms. Seymour, adding that at her first one-woman gallery show 15 years ago, Tom Monahan, the founder of Domino's Pizza, bought three paintings, totally unaware of the artist's day job.

There's a separate family-run enterprise to handle Ms. Seymour's design, inspirational and children's books (the couple's 10-year-old twins are an endless source of inspiration) as well as sundry real-estate ventures, chief among them what Mr. Keach refers to as Jane's Folly: St. Catherine's Court, a medieval manor house near Bath, England, that is leased out for corporate retreats and family vacations. Fortunately, Ms. Seymour has the right accessories for such a property; in 1999, she was honored with an Order of the British Empire.

The daughter of a gynecologist, Ms. Seymour was born Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg in Hayes, Hillingdon, England. A knee injury put a kibosh on her plans to become a ballerina (though not before she danced with the Kirov) and changed her focus to acting. "They were looking for someone to play a virgin, and I think I was about the closest thing left in England," she says of her casting in "Live and Let Die." "Roger Moore nicknamed me Baby Bernhardt because I thought it was a major acting role. I was very green."

She got past it. Ditto the injudicious marriages, an almost fatal anaphylactic reaction to an antibiotic and near bankruptcy. "I find getting older not much fun," says Ms. Seymour. "But you know something? I have a huge sense of freedom because I feel more willing to take chances than I ever did before. I don't feel I have anything to prove. I act because I love it. I paint because I love it. I design because I love it. And if any of it is loved back, well great thing."

Ms. Kaufman writes about the arts and culture for the Journal.

©Wallstreet Journal 2006