1884-1950
Stage and film actress Jane Cowl was born Jane Bailey on this day in Boston. Though born in Boston, she spent a good deal of her childhood in New York City, attending high school in Brooklyn and later attending Columbia in Manhattan. She, of course, started on the stage and made her official Broadway debut in 1903. She stayed primarily a stage actress for all of career, which lasted through the 1940's. She made her film debut in the lead role in the drama Garden of Lies in 1915; shot primarily in several locations in Florida. She appeared in just one other silent film in her career in 1917; The Spreading Dawn was another drama in which she took top billing--it was made for Goldwyn. As far as silents go, she actually had a bigger presence in the writing department than she did as an actress. Under the name Alan Langdon Martin, she wrote plays with Jane Murfin (they used the pen name jointly). Between the two of them, they share five silent or partially silent writing credits for films made between the years 1918 and 1928. The first of these was Daybreak (1918) an Albert Capellani film. The last of these was the partial silent Lilac Time (1928) starring Colleen Moore and Gary Cooper. Two more films were made from thier plays before Cowl again appeared in a film again herself (see: Smilin' Through--1932 and Smilin' Through--1941). In 1943, she made her first film appearance in 26 years, though the role was tiny and uncredited, in the Frank Borzage film Stage Door Canteen. It would be a further six years before she had another credited film role in Once More, My Darling (1949). She made three more films, the last of which--Payment on Demand (a Bette Davis film)--was released posthumously in February of 1951. Also posthumously, were two productions for television of her play Smithin Through--both in 1953. They represent the most recent use of her writing for a film and/or television. Cowl died in Santa Monica on the 22 of June in 1950 at the age of 65. Her ashes were buried at Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood. Cowl was married to actor Adolph Klauber; but they had been separated for three years before his death in 1933; she never remarried. On Broadway, she was one of the first influential female directors as well.
[Source: AJM (Find a Grave)]
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