Actress Seymour samples local flavor on 'royal
tour'
By Michael Donahue
Contact
July 22, 2004
Actress
Jane Seymour had a memorable Southern visit recently thanks
to "The Savannah Connection":
Mary Susan Clinton, Kristi Jernigan and Jana Pettey. Mary
Susan refers to the group as "The Savannah Connection" because
all the women are from Savannah, Tenn. They joined forces to
make sure Jane had a blast when she visited Memphis, Brownsville
and Savannah during the Fourth of July weekend.
Jane
was in Memphis to spend the holiday with her husband, James
Keach, who is in town co-producing "Walk the Line," the movie
based on the life of Johnny Cash, said Mary Susan.
The actress, who lives in Malibu, brought her children, twins Kris
and John (named after his godfather, the late Johnny Cash) and Jenni
Flynn, her stepdaughter from a previous marriage.
"We royally entertained them," Mary
Susan said. She originally met Jane at the Naples (Fla.)
Winter Wine Festival, a charity fund-raiser that Mary Susan
and her husband, J. D. Clinton, helped found. The Clintons
and their children Denver and Hurst divide their time at their
homes in Naples and Brownsville.
Jane,
who also is an artist, was exhibiting her paintings at an art
gallery in Naples, Mary Susan said. "Someone called me and said, ‘Would
you like to be her host at the wine festival?’ We became
really close friends and realized we have a lot of mutual friends."
After a lunch at the Rendezvous, Mary Susan and J. D. took the couple
to their Brownsville home for a seated dinner with jazz entertainment
by the Delta Cats. Dinner guests included Shelby County Mayor
A C Wharton and his wife, Ruby; Jana and John
Pettey and Bridget and Phil Trenary.
The next night, the couple were entertained at a Fourth of July alfresco
dinner at the Tennessee River-front home of Mary Susan's parents, Shelby and Dr.
John Gallien, in Savannah. The Venus Mission band performed.
The next morning, they were the guests of Charlie and Judy
Tripp, owner of Tripp's Country Hams, at a breakfast at their
antebellum home in Brownsville.
They rounded out the trip July 6 at AutoZone Park, where they were
the guests of Kristi and her husband, Dean Jernigan, in
the Founder's Box at a Memphis Redbirds game. Jana and John Pettey
were among the guests at that gathering.
The
announcer invited Jane and the twins to the press box, Mary
Susan said. "Jane got to sing 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame.' "
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