by John O’Dowd 2007
Prolific stage, film and television actress Janette Lane Bradbury utilized her childhood love of wonder and whimsy to build a substantial acting career that has spanned nearly 50 years. Inspired as a tot by magical visions of dancing elves and fairy princesses, the shy little girl began taking ballet lessons at age five with Dorothy Alexander, founder of The Atlanta Ballet, and later joined the company at age 12. In the late 1950s, Lane left the sylvan setting of her youth and went to New York City to continue her studies. It was there that she soon became interested in acting, as well. As a teenager, she auditioned for the world famous Actors Studio and was admitted as the youngest member in history to achieve that honor. Seeing her intense, energy-driven performances at the Studio, Elia Kazan cast her as “Jolly” in the Broadway drama, J.B., where Lane emoted alongside such stellar actors as Raymond Massey and Pat Hingle. She went from that show to originating the part of Dainty June in Gypsy (co-starring with the inimitable Ethel Merman), as well as essaying other important stage roles in Night of the Iguana (with a typically troublesome Bette Davis) and Marathon ‘33.
Moving to L.A. in the mid 1960s with her husband, actor/director Lou Antonio, Lane began a highly visible career as a guest-star on countless television series. Her long list of TV credits stretches over 35 years and includes roles in Gunsmoke, Kung Fu, In The Heat of the Night, Police Story, The Rockford Files, Alias Smith and Jones, Iron Horse, The Partridge Family, McCloud, The Mod Squad, Medical Center, and many others. Lane also appeared in several theatrical movies, including 1974’s Academy Award winning Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Hawaii, Consenting Adults and the 1975 Yul Brynner Sci-fi film, The Ultimate Warrior. In the early 70s, one of her most memorable roles came as Sally Field’s troubled teenage sister in the acclaimed TV movie, Maybe I’ll Come Home in the Spring.
In recent years, Lane has channeled her deep social consciousness and creative energy into her current position as artistic director of L.A.’s Valkyrie Theater of Dance, Drama & Film, a non-profit organization she founded to utilize the arts to benefit at-risk teenagers. Mentoring with a staff of professional filmmakers and artists in music, dance, drama and art, Lane and her organization are teaching the students at Valkyrie the skills and techniques they need to turn negative lives into wholly positive and productive ones.
A soft-spoken Southern Lady with a genteel and tender spirit, Lane Bradbury has faced the myriad challenges that life has brought her with the sweet, if determined, resolve of a true “Steel Magnolia”. She recently met with Outre to share her story of how a compassionate and artistic little girl from Georgia danced and dreamed her way into an incredibly fascinating life…a life of meaning and purpose.
“I was born outside of Atlanta, Georgia, in a beautiful area with lots and lots of woods. My father was an architect who later designed the governor’s mansion in Atlanta, as well as many of the buildings surrounding the State Capitol. My mother was a homemaker and a child taker and what I mean is that she took me and my younger siblings, Lynda and Tommy, everywhere. She was very much a ‘hands-on’ Mom. Lynda and I took ballet lessons starting at the age of five, piano and riding lessons at seven, Brownies, Girl Scouts…you name it. Lynda started playing the clarinet and I started playing the flute in elementary school, and my brother took piano lessons (which he hated). Later, he took flying lessons. You can see why I call my mother a child taker. She was one busy mom.
The two things I remember most about my childhood were riding horses and dancing. I think my very first memory was listening to music and dancing on our sofa which, in my mind, was the stage. I remember one specific time I was dancing and I looked down at my dress and it wasn’t very pretty so I went into my bedroom and changed into a Sunday dress so I could look more like a fairy—a beautiful fairy dancing on the stage. That’s one of my very first memories. Then, at the age of five my mother took me to see a dress rehearsal of the Atlanta Civic Ballet. I remember seeing what looked to be elves and fairies sitting in the audience with us. Though they were just the other children waiting to go on stage, I thought they were real. When mother asked me if I wanted to take ballet, I said yes because I thought that meant that I would be able to see the fairies and elves up close. At five, I started taking ballet classes with Dorothy Alexander, who was the founder of the Atlanta Ballet. I thought the fairies and elves would take one look at me and know that I was one of them and they would make me the fairy princess of all of them. Where does this come from, I wonder, in a child? It is such a strong memory for me.
I remember walking to ballet class and it was at Ansley Park. Miss Dorothy’s house was up on a hill and in order to get there you had to walk through what looked to me like a little fairy land of plants and fish ponds. In the ballet studio there were bay windows that overlooked the gardens and there was a silver bar that Miss Dorothy asked us to put our hands on, and I remember thinking, ‘Well, now, where are all the fairies?’ I saw a green curtain on the wall and I thought they must be behind the curtain and that they were going to come out and tell me that I was their fairy princess! (laughs) They didn’t actually do that but something about dance and music enchanted me from the start because I kept coming back. Eventually I became a member of the Atlanta Ballet when I was twelve.
It seems I have always been enchanted with horses. I remember my dad stopping the car one day at Chastain Memorial Park, which was maybe three miles from our house, to watch a horse show that was going on. We watched it from a distance and I thought ‘I have to do this, I have to do this’, and so horses were another early force in my life. Our neighbors, who lived in a log cabin, had a horse named Beauty and I can remember one of their children, I think his name was Maurice, riding through our property on the way to his house. I saw him on that horse and I wanted to be on that horse so bad that my stomach started hurting. I remember falling down on the ground because it was such a huge desire of mine to be on that horse! The next day I went to their house and asked them if I could ride. They put me on the horse and said, ‘Lane, pull the rein right if you want to go right, left if you want to go left, pull back if you want to stop, and kick when you want to go.’ And I did everything they told me and I think shortly after that my mother started taking me for riding lessons and I loved it. Loved it. Growing up in the country was a little bit of heaven for me because the life I knew was one of absolute joy and freedom. It was the freedom of the woods and the countryside and it was just an awesome part of my life.
As a child I obviously was driven by a passion to move to music and to ride horses but I was also very shy. As a young person I never felt like I fit in with the others. Even in elementary school I always felt like I was on the outside looking in. I think this is the story of so many artists. For what reason, I don’t know, but I wasn’t popular. I wasn’t part of the ‘in group’ and in my teenage years I just got more and more into dance and riding. With the horse I could be at one with the animal, and with dance I could be at one with myself, and with music I could use all the stuff that wasn’t going right in my life and put it into what I was creating. I was always something or someone of my imagination.
I was not a particularly good student. In fact, I was a terrible student. I remember I had to be tutored in math. Then, when I was fifteen I met a boy and fell in love with him. His name was Eddie Cathell and his father was a doctor and the mayor of Lexington, N.C., where they lived. He was the brother of a friend of mine at school. He was from North Carolina and one day he came to visit his sister. I remember him coming to the front door and I saw him through the screen. Well, the minute I saw him through that screen door I fell in love with him! (laughs) He was everything I fantasized a boyfriend should be. Of course, being that he was from North Carolina, we didn’t see each other a lot, but I would go up there sometimes and he would come down to Atlanta to see me. We talked about going to New York together. He was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Don’t tell me you can’t fall in love at fifteen! (laughs) Anyway, when I was a senior I went up to see him. I remember I was wearing my best pink skirt and matching cashmere sweater. Eddie picked me up at the airport and he was kind of quiet. He said he had to go to the train station on the way to his house. His old girlfriend, Tillie, was leaving to go back to school and he had to see her off. Eddie asked me to wait for him in the car while he went into the station, so I did. When he came back to the car he proceeded to tell me that while I was very special, I wasn’t a woman to him. He said I was more like ‘this little spirit person…like an ondine.’ So I said, ‘What’s an ondine?’ and he said, ‘It’s a creature from the spirit world. Audrey Hepburn is playing one on Broadway right now in a show called Ondine. That’s what you are to me.’ I was devastated.
Basically, Eddie broke up with me that evening, but on Sunday we went with another couple to a beautiful mountainside covered with trees majestic in their brilliant autumn colors. At one point I tried to give him the little gold cross that I was wearing around my neck but he said he couldn’t take it. On Sunday evening he put me back on a plane to go home. I still remember, there was a full moon that night. And I also remember the way my feet felt on the tarmac as they took me away from him and how my hands felt as they held on to the railing on the airplane stairs…each step taking me into a mind-boggling land of devastating loss. I cried the whole way home. I couldn’t stop crying. I remember driving myself to school on Monday but the principal sent me home because I couldn’t control my tears. On my way home I started to steer the car toward a telephone pole. My only thought was to kill the pain. For some reason, though, I swerved the car at the last second and just missed hitting the pole. Finally when I got home, Miss Prinzee, our housekeeper, called my father at work because she didn’t know what to do with me. [My mother was in California at the time at a Girl Scout convention.] Daddy came home from his office and he was beside himself, too. He took me to see Miss Dorothy and she brought me to St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and prayed with me. On the way home she told me that The Atlanta Opera was doing Tales of Hoffman and she was choreographing the ballet in it. She told me she wanted me to be one of the dancers. I remember she said, ‘Lane, you cab take all the devastation you are feeling right now and put it into something beautiful that will make other people happy’. And so that is what I decided to do. I often wonder: what do people do with their devastation when they don’t have a creative outlet?
I did the performance of Tales of Hoffman and shortly afterwards I was driving to school and I heard on the radio that The Atlanta Playmakers were holding auditions for a play called (get this) Ondine. I called my mother from school and asked her if she could get a copy of the play from the library because I wanted to audition for it.The library didn’t have the play but I decided to go to the audition anyway. It was held at the D.A.R. Building in Ansley Park. I arrived and signed in and was handed sides to read for the part of Ondine. I didn’t know what the play was about but the scene that I was given was between the Knight Hans and Ondine. I thought, ‘Eddie said I was like Ondine, so Hans must be like Eddie.’ All I did was read the scene like it was Lane talking to Eddie. The next day I got a call to ask me if I would like to play the lead, Ondine. Of course I said yes and went and picked up a script so I could see what I would be doing. I don’t remember getting any direction in rehearsals except that I had to speak up to be heard. My body had been trained but not my voice. Rehearsals were magical. It was like I was with Eddie all over again. In the last scene of the play Ondine has to tell Hans goodbye. They’re going to two different worlds but she promises she will be true to him always. I knew what that felt like, but during the scene I heard someone laugh. That really shook me and when I came off stage I burst into tears. I didn’t want to go back out there for curtain calls because I felt that I must have been horrible. Some sweet member of the cast put their arms around me and said, ‘Sometimes people laugh when they are moved because they are too ashamed to cry.’ She said that there were a lot of college boys from Georgia Tech in the audience. When they finally got me back out on the stage it was just filled with flowers for me. I remember going from devastation to wonder and then the people begin to come back stage and I saw tears running down so many cheeks. What an amazing time that was for a 16 year old.
I was still very young, just a teenager, when I moved to New York City to pursue becoming a dancer. My introduction to life in the city was an eye-opener. I was in a little apartment with a couple of rooms, with a tiny kitchen and a tiny bathroom…but I was in heaven! My parents were ready to bring me back home but it was too late. I was there and I was going to stay! Because I didn’t go to college, they enrolled me in a pantomime class at Columbia University and that’s where I met an actor named Tom Wheatley. One day I was watching him rehearse and I never saw such freedom in an actor. He was on stage and then at one point he walked off stage and started walking across the chairs in the auditorium. I was fascinated by him. After he finished rehearsing, he was in the lobby of the theatre and I walked up to him and I said, ‘Can I say something to you?’ He said, ‘Yes’. He leaned down and I whispered in his ear, ‘I love you’. (laughs) Well, we became best friends and he became my mentor, as well. When he auditioned for The Actor’s Studio he asked me if I would audition with him, and I said ‘Sure, but what’s The Actor’s Studio?’ (laughs) He told me that it’s a place where James Dean studied and Marlon Brando studied and Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward studied, and Montgomery Clift studied. I said ‘Oh, wow…that sounds like a really good place.’ I had no idea what it was! Anyway, we chose a scene to do and we went in and auditioned and they asked us to come back and do another scene. The final audition was in the afternoon of the night I was to leave NY to fly home for Christmas. Tom called me the next day and told me they had accepted us both into The Actor’s Studio! So I got into the Studio really not knowing anything much about acting except just being me.Tom was really an awesome person to work with because he never pushed me…he never pushed me to act. He only pushed me to be Lane.
Going to The Actor’s Studio was a godsend. You could go and work on different scenes and experience different characters and I learned on my feet. I worked with some incredible people including Lee Strasberg, and it really was an amazing and creative time in my life.
The first TV show I ever did was The Outcasts of Poker Flat in 1958. I loved that one because I loved working with [my co-star] Larry Hagman. He played my fiance and watching him work on the show was a magical experience. It was live TV so it was like being on stage, but they filmed it. The cast consisted of George C. Scott, actresses Ruth White and Janet Ward, Larry Hagman, and me. We rehearsed over a Jewish delicatessen and it was so much fun. But then when it came time to shoot, I froze! I thought, ‘Oh my God! I’m doing this before millions of people and millions of people are going to see this!’ I clutched, you know, I clutched, and I can remember thinking ‘I can’t do this!’ But then, from off camera before my entrance, I started watching Larry’s scene. I was watching him on the monitor. He looked so handsome and capable and I just fell in love with him…you know, like you fall in love with someone in a movie. I thought to myself, ‘Lane, you get to work with him!You get to love him. Now go out there and do it.’ That took all the fear away. I just breezed through the rest of the performance. That was my entrance into the world of television.
My first Broadway play in 1959 was J.B. by Archibald MacLeish, which was based on The Book of Job. I got the part because the director, Elia Kazan, had seen me do several scenes at the Studio and liked my work. He called me in and had me read for the part of Jolly Adams. It was a little seven-line part…a young girl with a bunch of women, all of whom had survived a nuclear blast. Elia Kazan liked my reading and gave me the part. Even though I only had seven lines, I used them to help me hone my craft as an actress. During the rehearsals for the play I heard that my coming out ball was scheduled back home. My agent asked Kazan if I could be excused to leave the Friday after rehearsal and go and make my debut at the Driving Club in Atlanta on Saturday night and come back on Sunday to be ready to rehearse on Monday. I’d already had my dress made—it had an upside down rose on it and it was lovely. I think my wanting to make my debut in Atlanta must have tickled Kazan as he said to me, ‘I’ll let you go if you would bring me back a picture of your debut.’ Of course that was easy enough so that’s what I did! (laughs)
While I was still in J.B., I auditioned for Gypsy. My audition consisted of doing a song from Can-Can, titled I’m A Maiden Typical of France. I had done it once back in Atlanta and it was cute and very animated. Still, I didn’t get the part. After they were in rehearsal, my agent called me and said ‘Lane, they are getting ready to fire the girl who is playing Dainty June and they want you to go to the next dress rehearsal.’ I went to the dress rehearsal and I can remember feeling really upset that this girl that I was watching was probably losing her job.After the dress rehearsal they did decide to fire her and hire me, and over the next three days I had to learn three songs and two dances…as well as how to twirl a baton and a lot of dialogue. They sent someone to rehearse with me at a studio in New York as learning to twirl batons is not easy. I had to twirl while going slowly into a split. A couple of batons wound up going out the studio window because I’d never done that before in my life! I had always thought I was a classic dancer, you know, and that people who twirled batons were kind of cheap white trash, so here I was twirling batons, trying to learn something that I always thought was cheap! (laughs) Anyway, I learned what I needed for the role and the first night they kind of just pushed me out on stage. I don’t remember anything about that first night, I just remember people yanking clothes off of me and yanking other stuff on me and shoving me toward the stage entrance and I went out and did the best job I could.
I think there was a lot of resentment towards me from some of the cast of Gypsy because they really loved the girl I had replaced. I remember that Ethel Merman was not supportive at all. Nor was she fun to work with. She had her performance all mapped out and it never changed. She would never look you in the eyes…she only looked at your forehead. I guess that was so if you did something different, her performance wouldn’t be effected by it. It was so totally the opposite of what I was learning at the Actor’s Studio and the way that I worked naturally. However, when Merman did the song Rose’s Turn at the end of the show I used to watch her from the wings because she always got tears in her eyes. That was fascinating to me.
The only person that was supportive in Gypsy was Jack Klugman…I felt his support from the very start. From what I understand they had replaced the other girl with me because my voice was more of a belting voice, like Merman’s. I was like a child version of Merman, you know, my voice was really big and brash.
I had absolutely worshipped Jerome Robbins, the choreographer on the show. But then when we got into rehearsal, I found him to be really, really frightening. Because I went into Gypsy so fast, I was constantly trying to catch up. In one scene I was supposed to move this little teapot so that Ethel Merman could sweep the flat silver on the table into her purse without being caught stealing. But, in order to make a clean sweep, I had to move the teapot to another part of the table. It was simple, really, but I forgot to do it. So I got a note about it and then the next night I forgot to remove it again. I got another note and I thought, ‘How do I remember to do this?’ Well, since I was a fledgling member of The Actor’s Studio and had learned a lot about sense memory, I said, ‘Okay, before I go on stage I’ll do sense memory about really needing tea and then I’ll remember to pick up the teapot and pour myself a little bit of tea.’ But I got so involved with doing the sense memory, I again forgot to remove the teapot! (laughs) And I got another note. After the third or fourth time of doing this, there was an announcement one day during rehearsal that ‘There will be a teapot rehearsal for Lane Bradbury in the lobby at 4:00.’ So at 4:00 I went out to the lobby and the stage manager and I worked on the scene. He would say the line and I would remove the teapot to the side and then he would put it back again. Then he would say the line again and I would move the teapot to the side and this went on for over half an hour. It was like writing ‘I will have better self control’ 400 times on the blackboard. So then when I went on stage I was thinking to myself, ‘Remember to remove the teapot, remember to remove the teapot.’ Well, I was concentrating so much on remembering to remove the teapot, I forgot to remove it again. I came off stage and I was going up to my dressing room and Jerome Robbins was standing at the top of the stairs, waiting for me. He just looked at me and screamed, ‘You fucking little bitch!’ And I immediately knew what I had done. I had forgotten to remove the teapot. So the next night I did the performance, I remembered to remove the teapot but when I went to get my batons from the back of the end of the train, they were gone. After I got off stage, I went to the stage manager and asked, ‘What happened to my batons? They’re not there.’ Jerome Robbins was standing behind the stage manager. He said, ‘I took your batons so you would remember to remove the fucking teapot!’ Oh, it was a nightmare. It was a nightmare and I think I got so frightened of him after that that I just went into a state of paranoia. I was so afraid of him that if I knew he was in the theater watching me I would mess up. Every time. I was terrified of him. It was a humiliating experience. But then, on opening night my agent gave me a teapot. A little golden teapot for my charm bracelet. (laughs) That story is in a couple of books about Robbins and believe me, every bit of it is true.
My experience with Gypsy was that it was never that much fun. As time went on I got closer to some of the people but it never was any fun. My agent had gotten me a six month contract for the show which was unheard of at the time because usually they want you for a year. But he had gotten me more money because they were desperate. After about six months I pulled a muscle and I was out for a week. Then when I was ready to come back they said ‘Oh, why don’t you just take another week’, so I took another week. It was good to have some time off but then when I was ready to come back, they said ‘We’re firing you because you’ve been absent too long.’ (laughs) I think what happened was they got my understudy to do the part for a lot less money. It was tough to be fired like that but I was tired of it anyway. Still, that’s not the ending you would like…
After I got fired from Gypsy I had a brief time when I didn’t have any work and then in late 1961 I auditioned for the Tennessee Williams play, Night of the Iguana. Bette Davis was starring in it and I tried out for the part of Charlotte Goodall—which was a very emotional role—and I got the part. It was really, really hard, though, as the character goes on stage hysterical and comes off even more hysterical—all in the space of three minutes! A lot of times Tennessee Williams’ words help an actor get to where she needs to be but they didn’t in this case…I just had to do it all on my own, eight times a week, for, like, eleven months. Believe me, that’s hard duty and it was extremely draining.
I must say, a lot of my experiences on Broadway were not all that great. A lot of people are crazy, you know, and I’m sure that at that point in my life I was a little crazy, too. I think if I did it again, with what I know now and with the life experiences I’ve had, I would know how to counteract some of that craziness, but I didn’t at the time. I mean, I had no clue. And out-of-town with Night of the Iguana was a disaster. Patricia Roe, a co-star in the play, and I were getting all the good reviews for a while, and I’m afraid it caused some whiplash from the rest of the cast. I remember Paula Prentiss, who was the understudy of Bette Davis, coming up to me one night outside the theater and screaming, “You are fucking up the whole show! Nobody offstage can hear you.” Which was an odd thing to say since Pat Roe and I were getting really good reviews. But you know, I guess Paula needed somebody to dump on that night, and since she couldn’t dump on Bette Davis, I got it! (laughs)
As for Davis herself, she was pretty unpleasant. Each night during the play’s initial run in Chicago, I would sit and prepare my lines right next to where I would have to go on stage. I remember one evening Bette Davis walking by me and giving me a very dirty look. Well, the next thing you know, she’s talking to the stage manager who then comes over to tell me that I couldn’t prepare my scenes there anymore and that from now on I would have to go down four flights of stairs to the basement to wait for my cue and then run up just in time to go on stage. The whole situation was very upsetting to me but actually in the long run the negativity of it only helped me.You know, Charlotte Goodall was hysterical and so was Lane Bradbury! (laughs)
Anyway, Night of the Iguana finally opened on Broadway and we were a big hit. Even though I had a contract to be with the show for a year, near the end of my run I was offered a role in Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, so I left the show one month early so I could do it. However, since I was emotionally exhausted from Night of the Iguana I decided to coast a little bit in the first rehearsals for Virginia Woolf, and the producers wound up firing me. They replaced me with Bonnie Bedelia. It was a big disappointment but you know, it was all my own doing. I was on an emotional edge from all that I had been through in Night of the Iguana and I just allowed life to negatively effect my work. That was a hard lesson to learn. However, I have made sure to never coast again in rehearsals.
It was at The Actor’s Studio that I first met Lou Antonio. In fact, I think my third scene at the Studio was with him. The work was called “Kean” and he played Edmond Kean and I played a young actress who was coming to see him backstage to get his autograph. My character was in love with him and it was a great, fun scene to play and so that’s how Lou and I met. We started going out and after a while I moved out of my apartment and we moved into this little red house on Route 9 in West Nyack, New York. My parents were mortified…they thought I was ruining my life! But it felt right to me, you know? I didn’t feel I was doing anything wrong.
After another play [Marathon ’33] Lou and I decided to spend a summer in L.A. to see what that was all about, and because of all my work on Broadway I got a part on Mr. Novak, with James Fransiscus. It was a teenage role and from there I went right into a guest part on The Fugitive. I didn’t have a very big part but I remember trying to cram so many different emotions into my scenes that I came across very overblown and theatrical.You know, back then they would let you watch the dailies as you went along so that you could see your work.You could critique what you had done and you really learned about your mannerisms. Well, I learned that I had a lot of mannerisms! And when I got them all going at once, boy, watch out because it just looked yucky. I absolutely hated my performance on The Fugitive…it was horrible. I did enjoy working with David Janssen, though. I think he had some inner demons he was struggling with but it certainly never effected his work, or our work together. He was a very giving actor and a nice man.
Around 1967, I started doing a lot of TV. Iron Horse, I think, was one of the first westerns I did. Dale Robertson was the star.That was a show that I felt they just wanted to rocket through and finish as quickly as possible. I remember one time we did the first half of a scene where my hair was piled up and I had to appear from behind a clothesline and then when we came back and did the second half I came out from behind the clothesline and my hair was hanging down! I mean, they didn’t even catch it. That was, you know, it was just one of those things that was fun to do but it didn’t have the feeling of commitment behind the scenes like some of the other shows did.
I had a recurring role (as Merry Florene) on Gunsmoke in 1968 and 69, which I absolutely loved! My affection for that character must have come from my childhood when I was fascinated by the “poor white trash” children who lived in a shack on a dirt road near the top of our driveway. My sister Lynda and I would wait at the end of our driveway for our hauling group to pick us up to go to school, while the poor kids would wait at the end of their dirt road for the school bus to come get them and bring them to Liberty Grand, which was a school that our mother would not allow us to go to. We were not allowed to talk to the poor kids that lived near us, so we always looked at each other across the big stretch of pavement that separated us. I’ll never forget it—they seemed to always wear these dresses that were faded blue and patched. I always imagined that the floors of their shack were made of dirt, just like the road they lived on. My father would take them a turkey on Thanksgiving and Christmas and I used to just sit and wonder about them. Wonder what their lives were like. So that’s my earliest memory of being curious about someone that didn’t have what I had. I’ve always had a fantasy about Cinderella and the poorer world—you know, what being poor really meant. And I think I always wanted to bring something that meant a lot to people that didn’t have a lot.
One of my strongest memories of Gunsmoke is how much Milburn Stone (Doc) and Ken Curtis (Festus) made each other laugh all the time. I recall one scene between the three of us. Milburn broke Ken up and then Ken broke Milburn up and it kept happening until I broke up, too! It quickly became a real laugh fest and we just couldn’t get through the scene. It got worse and worse (or funnier and funnier) until finally the scene was shot in one or two line segments so we all could get through it without laughing.
My only negative memory of the show was that the makeup man was a golfer and I always remember him kind of slapping my makeup on real fast so he could cut out of work early to go play golf. So, I would always have to go back and touch up my makeup a little bit. But the Gunsmoke scripts were wonderful and working on that set with all those fine people was a joy. I loved the character of Merry Florene. There I was getting to ride horses and be in covered wagons and all the stuff I practiced in the woods and on my front lawn when I was a child. I was being given the opportunity to gallop off on horseback with a sack of stolen money and do all kinds of neat things…I just loved it.
Alias Smith and Jones, however, was another one of those things that felt like it was just about turning on the camera and letting it roll. It was surface TV but I remember seeing myself on the show later on and thinking, ‘Oh, you are just as surface as they are.’ Here I was, you know, in my own cocky way, putting down everybody else on the set and then when I saw myself I thought, ‘Well, you just cranked it out, too!’
Kung Fu, of course, was with David Carradine. I thought he was an extremely sensitive man. I remember I had a scene with him at an open grave where I was burying my baby. In real life, I’d already had one child (my first daughter Elkin) who was about a year old at the time, and I was pregnant with my second (my daughter Angelique). It was one of those scenes where I didn’t even have to work at it because after having a precious child and carrying another one, I didn’t see how anyone could go on after having lost a child. We started the scene and I got so hysterical, David stopped the take. God, how I wished he hadn’t done that. So, we did the scene again. He told me later that he was sorry he had stopped the scene but he thought that I must have lost a child in real life. I guess it was very painful for him to see me acting hysterical like that. Jerry Thorpe directed me in that show and I loved working with him. We had worked together earlier on a TV-movie called Dial Hotline and he was wonderful. He always took a lot of time in preparing things and everything about the show was important to him. He really cared about your performance. I can remember another scene in Kung Fu…nobody knew I was pregnant and there was a place in the story where I had to fall out of the wagon and roll away from the wheels. They wanted me to roll in a straight line and, well, I couldn’t because I had a little tummy to protect. So, I kept rolling in a circle instead and we did it two or three times and finally they just gave up because I just could not make myself roll in a straight line!
In the early 70s, when I was doing all these westerns, I was also doing a lot of other TV work, too. Let’s see, there was Medical Center…The Mod Squad…The Partridge Family…Mannix…The FBI…McCloud…McMillan and Wife…Banacek. There were so many of them! A lot of them, I’m sorry to say, I don’t even remember doing. Believe me, when you do that much TV, the jobs just kind of run together after a while. For instance, I don’t have any specific memories of The Mod Squad. I do remember it was a pleasant, fun experience. I jumped from a plane in a parachute and that’s about all I can tell you about it! On Medical Center, I don’t even remember the character I played. I mean, that job was nearly 40 years ago. That’s a long time back, you know? (laughs)
The Partridge Family I remember because in real life I had had an operation to get pregnant and I did the show maybe a week and a half or two weeks after the operation. So after undergoing this life-altering operation that I’d had, the show seemed very…frothy. But I enjoyed doing it and what I remember most is walking through the scene feeling the fact that I’d had this big operation and that it was so monumental in contrast to the character I was playing.
As for some of the other stuff I did…I don’t have any real memories of Mannix, other than that Mike Connors was easy to work with. No problems there. I think Mannix was the first time I used my birth name of Janette Lane Bradbury in the credits. I used to get really irritated when I would get mail addressed to MISTER Lane Bradbury because everyone thought Lane Bradbury was a boy! Then on some TV show I guested on, someone suggested that I be nominated for an Emmy for my performance and they put me in the “Character ACTORS” category because there was a guy named Lane Smith and they thought I was him! That made me so mad and since Janette Lane Bradbury was my given name I thought ‘I’m going to use Janette from now on so that people will know I’m a girl.’ Anyway, I used my full name for the first time on Mannix, I believe, but then I went back and forth between the two names for a long time afterwards. Nowadays, though, I always use Janette Lane Bradbury as my professional name although sometimes I will sign an autograph as “Lane Bradbury” if the person only remembers me that way.
The same year I did Mannix I guest-starred on several other television shows, including McCloud with Dennis Weaver. I absolutely loved working with Dennis. Lou (Antonio) directed that episode and I got to dance on the show, which was great. Police Story was fun because I got to play a prostitute in it and it was a very meaty part…a terrific acting role. Lou also directed me in McMillan and Wife and there was a scene in it where I had to kiss Rock Hudson. I remember that he was extremely shy in that scene, but what a kind and lovely man he was. In fact, most of the TV stars I worked with were wonderful and were absolutely always there for you.
On the other hand, working with George Peppard on Banacek was a little bit…weird. Lou was friends with George and I remember feeling very uncomfortable during the shoot because he sort of put the make on me! Not hugely, but you know, he knew that Lou and I were a couple and so I thought it was very inappropriate of him to do that, to say the least. I would say that George Peppard had a pretty healthy ego! Other than that, Banacek was a fun show to do because I got to ride a race horse which may look easy, but it’s not. Let me tell you, my thighs really got a work out on that show! (laughs)
In 1971, I played Sally Field’s younger sister in a TV movie called Maybe I’ll Come Home in the Spring, which was actually quite controversial at the time. It was one of her first adult roles after her work on Gidget and The Flying Nun and it really ushered in a whole new phase in her career. I loved working with Sally. We were always in cahoots…just like real sisters! However, I never got close to either Jackie Cooper or Eleanor Parker, who played our parents. They were sort of old-fashioned and I think they reminded me of my own parents so I chose to react to them as if they were. One time when I was a teenager my father had caught me kissing a boy in the recreation room and he called me upstairs and yelled at me and called me a whore. Well, I didn’t speak to him for six months afterward because I was so mad at him and I just gave him the cold shoulder. So I kind of drew on that memory when I was playing my scenes with Jackie and Eleanor. In another situation I probably would have wanted to get to know them better but the fact that I kind of distanced myself from them on the set helped me stay in character. My role in the film was that of an angry and rebellious teenager named “Susie” who popped a lot of pills. It wasn’t an especially difficult part for me to play because I had already smoked pot by then and even took LSD one time (which was an absolutely horrendous experience). So I was able to pull up my memories of those experiences to get into the character. I really loved that job and the director, Joseph Sargent, made it all so easy. That show was all about good work—good, connected work.
I remember doing The FBI because I got to play another prostitute! (laughs) That was kind of a special part. In the middle of doing all this TV work I was also auditioning for a lot of film roles, too. Some I got…some I didn’t get. One role that I was offered and turned down (and foolishly, I might add) was the Bonnie Bedelia part in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? I didn’t take it because I was very full of my own ego at the time, and I thought the part was too small. Which was a mistake. I must say, I wasn’t real successful in making the changeover from television to films. But you know, it’s all part of the business we’re in.
Dealing with rejection is always hard and at first you do take it personally. But over time you just have to say to yourself, ‘It’s not me, as a person, that they are rejecting, I’m just not what they’re looking for to play this part.’ Believe me, you know when you’ve done a good reading (and when you haven’t) and eventually I had to learn how to put more effort into my auditions.
One of the film projects that I did get during this time was a real classic: Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974). I played the battered wife of Harvey Keitel and I only had one scene in the picture, but it was a good one. I didn’t even have to read for the role. I remember Martin Scorsese wanted me to come in to rehearse for it but I told him I didn’t want to because I wanted my performance to be really fresh. Well, that was kind of cocky of me, wasn’t it? (laughs) I could have cut my own throat with that attitude but I met Harvey Keitel for dinner the night before we shot and he said everything was okay. So the next day we’re on the set and I did my one scene with (the film’s star) Ellen Burstyn. Right afterwards, I remember telling Scorsese, nervy thing that I was, that ‘I’ve got about two of these [performances] in me so can we try to get it in the can on the first or second day.’ I’m not sure that was such a smart thing to say to him, but I just wanted to be my best, and I knew the way I worked the best. Ellen was wonderful. She was always right there for me. I just loved playing that character. When Harvey breaks into the motel room where I’ve come to talk to Ellen…well, we rehearsed it once and then when it came time to shoot the scene, Ellen and I were both trembling. Neither one of us were acting because he was that scary! I remember crawling out of there on my hands and knees after he beat me up and going across the sugar glass but there was so much reality that once again I didn’t feel like I had to act. I just had to react to two wonderful talents that were so incredible that they made my job easy.
Right after Alice, I did another film that still resonates with me. It was a Sci-fi film called The Ultimate Warrior (1975) with Yul Brynner. The story was set in New York in the year 2012 after a nuclear holocaust has wiped out most of civilization. I remember I burst into tears when I first walked onto the sound stage as I was standing on what used to be a main street in NYC in the ruins of what our world would look like after the atomic bomb. I had a rape scene in the film and I recall the director telling me after one of the takes that I shouldn’t struggle so hard as the boys were having a hard time holding me down. The feeling of devastation and survival that I had from the bombed-out sets and from that rape scene stayed with me throughout the entire shoot…it was extremely powerful. I only wish the film had been as powerful. I remember going to a screening of it and being very disappointed with the end result.
Unfortunately I had no scenes in the movie with Yul Brynner…my scenes were toward the beginning of the film and laid the way for his character to appear. It would have been interesting to work with him. The Ultimate Warrior was a brutal film and the scary thing is if we keep going the way we are, this could really be our future!
From 1975 to about 1991 or 92 I worked mostly in television, but I worked a lot. In 1980 I had a pretty good part as a struggling and suddenly unemployed divorcee with three small children in the TV movie Where the Ladies Go. It was an ensemble-type show but most of my scenes were with the film’s star, Karen Black. Working with Karen was fine…I don’t recall having any problems with her. The director of the show, Teddy Flicker, was great. Very giving and supportive. He really worked hard to create an environment where all the actors could do their best work. The most memorable part of the shoot, I think, was that Lou Antonio, from whom I had gotten divorced in real life, played my boyfriend in the film. Obviously there was a lot of emotional stuff going on between us and I remember Teddy saying to me, “Just keep the lid on, Lane…keep the lid on.” (laughs)
I loved doing TV. I certainly preferred it to doing stage work because I’d had three really big hits on Broadway where you repeat the same thing every night and it’s hard. For instance, Night of the Iguana demanded that I be very emotional and that I reach way down within myself every night and it was just excruciatingly hard work. I would find myself doing things in my real life that I probably wouldn’t have done in order to bring all that negative stuff to the stage. So I would end up using real stuff in my performance which can be really dangerous.
As for my personal life during this time, Lou Antonio and I got divorced in 1976. Though we didn’t make it as a married couple, we did have two beautiful daughters together. Our first daughter, Elkin, was born in 1971 and Angelique was born in 1973. They both danced as youngsters [and loved it] and they are both happily married. Elkin is married to a director, Bobby Garabedien, who did a short film about three years ago called Most that was nominated for an Academy Award, and it is a beautiful, beautiful film. Elkin still dances. She and Bobby have two children: Colby, their son, is sixteen, and Ginny Drew, their daughter, is twelve. Angelique is married to Mark Hannah who is a sound producer and composer and she is a professional photographer. They have a four-year old daughter named Merivelle. I am very proud of my family. They are conscious and loving people and they’re all helping to make the world a better place.
Thinking about Lou…well, he is the most amazing human being I know. I wish our marriage had worked out and it is mostly my fault that it didn’t. I married him out of…well, I loved him, but I loved him as a friend and I think I married him out of a need to survive. In those years, I was a mess, a suicidal mess, and he was always there for me. Besides being a fantastic human being, Lou is an incredible director and the times I worked with him have been really fulfilling times where I knew I was doing the very best work I could do. He’s an incredible dad to his children and grandfather to his grandchildren and we are still very close.
It’s funny but out of all my TV work, the three appearances I made on Carroll O’Connor’s In the Heat of the Night in the mid-90s, are probably what a lot of people remember the most. Interestingly, I played trashy characters in all three shows! (laughs) I love those kinds of roles because you know, there’s really a lot of meat to them. In fact, if you take a look at all my TV work, I often played women who were crazy or emotionally frail or just plain mixed-up, which was always fine with me! Those parts are fun and they’re challenging, too. Working on In the Heat of the Night was wonderful. Carroll O’Connor and everyone connected with that show really set the stage for you to do your best. Carroll was an amazing man. He really supported my career and in fact, I only had to audition for the first episode. I was living in Atlanta at the time and they filmed the show in Conyers, Georgia, so it worked out really well. After the first show, I didn’t have to read for the other two episodes because Carroll already knew that he liked my work. I would say he was easily one of the finest people I ever worked with.
After I did In the Heat of the Night things got kind of dark for a while. By then I had moved back to L.A. and had hired a new agent who got me a few little spots on television but it never really went anywhere. So, my TV work tapered off considerably. There were just a few more jobs in the 90s (Savannah, Party of Five and Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction) and then nothing else after 2000. The work dropped off and I also wasn’t willing to put the time and effort into actively pursuing it, either. I guess my having done so many lead guest-star roles and really good parts in the 70s and 80s spoiled me and I was no longer willing to put myself out there for crumbs, you know? It had gotten to the point where I was driving all the way down to Huntington Beach and Long Beach to audition for a two or three line part. That wasn’t what acting was all about to me, so I stopped. The business had changed so much. I had started writing screenplays around this time, so my own interests had changed, too. My real love has always been utilizing dance and drama together and since I was never given the opportunity to really showcase that in my previous film and TV work, I welcomed the chance to do it on my own.
If I had to choose my favorite roles I would say that all the work I did at The Actor’s Studio, different scenes and different pieces that I’ve written, are among my very favorites. Also, Maybe I’ll Come Home In the Spring and Dial Hotline, where I played little rebel girls, troubled…I loved those characters. I also loved the Gunsmoke episodes. They were so much fun, as was Police Story. And the first TV show I ever did, The Outcasts of Poker Flat. These days I don’t think of making a comeback, I think of doing things my own way. That’s where I’m putting my focus now and it’s a different way of ‘coming back’, I think. It is so much more difficult today out here in L.A. to find work and to have an acting career. It’s like our economy….the money goes to a few very, very rich people and it keeps being filtered into their pockets and it’s the same way now, it seems, with the actors out here. It’s so hard to get a foothold in the business. I can remember when I was first working I didn’t want to do a series because to me it was like doing Broadway. It was a lot of repetition. The same character, you know, whereas when I got to go in and do a guest star role I got to do a lead and a different person each time and I got to experience different lives. There’s just a lot fewer of those roles now. These days, the main stars get all the meat. They’re not just setting up scenes for someone like me to come in and have the meat, they’re getting the meat themselves. The business nowadays is very scary. I tell people who ask me about becoming an actress or an actor out here, that it’s got to be the only thing possible that they can do. And if they have a choice, then don’t do it because it’s too hard and there is too much of it that’s unfulfilling. And reality TV shows have not helped at all!
For a long time I’ve wanted to bring something that means so much to me—namely, dance and drama—into lives that didn’t have much, and it was actually at a church service a few years ago that I finally found the motivation I needed. It was at All Saints Episcopal Church and Ed Bacon, the head priest, was talking about how the church was going to be working with gang members and all of a sudden I felt like a huge kick in my bottom. I had been teaching a ballet class to underprivileged children in Pacoima and I’d already had a dance/drama idea for this class that dealt with religion, sexual discrimination and gang violence. So, while Ed’s message really clicked with me, I didn’t pay any attention to it at first. I heard, but I didn’t act. The next week he talked about gangs again and I thought, ‘Lane, you better listen to that kick in your fanny and go find out about this’. What I found out was there was a youth institute that was doing a summer program with young gang members and so I went and talked to the director, Michael Brown. I told him about my experience at church and about the idea I had. He hired me to work with these kids. My Sothern wasp self from Atlanta, Georgia and a life of privilege, was going to be working with potential gang members! My God, I didn’t know anything about anything! But for four days a week for a month that summer I taught them dance and drama. We did a piece called What is Courage and it was an incredible experience.They wanted to keep it going and I kept trying to set up something so that I could continue through the youth institute but it eventually folded. After that I just thought, ‘Well, I’ll start my own performance group that will meet three times a week for three hours.’ It took me over a year to find an adequate place for us to meet because all the recreational facilities and churches in the area were already filled. I literally scoured Pasadena and Hollywood and finally found a small studio. It was called ‘The Worker’s Place’ and it was on Pico and St. Andrew’s Place in South Central L.A. I almost turned it down because it was small but it is so light and airy I decided to take it and that’s where we are right now. I have named the organization Valkyrie Theater of Dance, Drama and Film and we work to bring hope and creativity to at-risk teenagers. We’re working professional filmmakers and artists in music, dance, drama and art. These children are being taught the skills and techniques for turning the negatives in their lives into helping themselves and one another.
In 2003 I produced a short film I wrote called Almost Forgotten. It was directed by Hugo Pallete and scored by the wonderfully talented Unita and her husband Joseph Atkins. Prior to shooting the film we conducted workshops in aspects of filmmaking for six weekends. These workshops taught the students costume design, acting, make-up, equestrian instruction and hands-on shooting of the dancers and the horses. Around the shooting of the film and workshops, we also did a documentary called From the Midst of Pain that was shot by director Nunzio Fazio and producer Lisa Carosato. The film shows how the arts can heal and transform people’s lives. The three women featured, all victims of abuse, have come forth to tell their stories so that other women in similar situations can get out of whatever abusive situations they may be in. When we finish cutting and editing this film I believe it is going to have a very powerful impact on people. I raised maybe $9,000 for both projects by sending out fundraising letters but when it came time to shoot the films and do the workshops, I didn’t have enough money so I wound up putting $60,000 on my credit cards to pay for the rest of it! When I told my brother and sister what I did, they were absolutely appalled with me. I must admit it was a kind of crazy thing to do but I am gradually paying it off. In fact, I think I only have about a little over $19,000 left to pay on it. If I hadn’t done that the films would never have been made. But believe me, I won’t ever do that again. I’ve learned that I can’t jump off a cliff before I know if there’s water underneath!
Our current Valkyrie workshops are being documented by cinematographer Jack Cochran so that we can see the progress of these kids. Jack is an amazing cinematographer and an amazing human being. He documents these kids lives, showing how absolutely heroic they are…a lot of their lives are just so unbelievably shattered. We’ve also done a film on Hector Aristizabal, who is a therapist and one of our mentors. Hector is a torture survivor from South America and a brilliant actor. I saw him do a one man show about his experiences called Viento Nocturno and it was so breathtaking we have now put it in a film that’s just come out. This film needs to be out there—it needs to be seen. Not only is Hector’s performance extraordinary, so is Jack Cochran’s cinematography, as well as the music and sounds of Enzo Fina.
Whatever money comes from that documentary will then go into funding another film as well as funding the dance/drama/performance group throughout the rest of the year. I am also planning on doing a feature film I wrote called Even The Least of These. There is a character in it that I wrote for myself, a mentally retarded woman, so I would be once again doing my old stuff which would fulfill not only my artistic vision and needs but allow me to create something of real meaning for the world. It won’t be easy being up against all the other motion pictures that are out there: you know, the action/adventure and sci-fi, ‘blockbuster roonies’ with all the big names, but I am going to try. I would love to be able to use any actor that I want for this film and use some of the incredible talent that I work with at The Actor’s Studio—some of whom are having a hard time existing in the industry right now. I am also hoping to work on the film with the Westminster School back in Atlanta, which is where I went to school, so that the kids from their dance and drama departments can mentor to the kids that I bring in from Los Angeles. The elite, socially prominent, intellectually astute teenagers will be working with damaged kids who can be just as bright in their areas but have not had the same advantages. I feel that what they will be learning from each other will be invaluable. Whatever Even The Least of These makes will then go into funding another film and also funding the dance drama performance group to function during the year. So, the work of Valkyrie is my passion. I am very, very happy, very hopeful…and I am very grateful, too.”
LANE’S FILM AND TV CREDITS:
“Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction” …. Norma (1 episode, 2000)
… aka Beyond Belief (USA: short title)
– The Landlady (2000) TV Episode (as Janette Lane Bradbury) …. Norma
“Party of Five” …. Secretary (1 episode, 1999)
– Wrestling Demons (1999) TV Episode (as Janette Lane Bradbury) …. Secretary
“Savannah” …. Secretary (3 episodes, 1996)
– Creep Throat (1996) TV Episode …. Secretary
– From Here to Paternity (1996) TV Episode …. Secretary
– Prince of Lies (1996) TV Episode …. Secretary
“In the Heat of the Night” …. Myrna Hughes / … (3 episodes, 1992-1995)
– Grow Old Along with Me (1995) TV Episode (as Janette Lane Bradbury) …. Trina Mallin
– When the Music Stopped (1992) TV Episode (as Janette Lane Bradbury) …. Tina Yost
– A Time to Trust (1992) TV Episode (as Janette Lane Bradbury) …. Myrna Hughes
In the Heat of the Night: Grow Old Along with Me (1995) (TV) (as Janette Lane Bradbury) …. Trina
Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All (1994) (TV) (uncredited) …. Mrs. Williams
A Passion for Justice: The Hazel Brannon Smith Story (1994) (TV) …. Lily Clayburn
… aka Quest for Justice
To Dance with the White Dog (1993) (TV) …. Mildred Cook
Stolen Babies (1993) (TV) …. Meg Wilber
“Queen” (1993) (mini) TV Series (as Janette Lane Bradbury)
… aka Alex Haley’s Queen
Consenting Adults (1992) …. Dry Cleaner Lady
Wife, Mother, Murderer (1991) (TV) …. Aunt Frieda
… aka Wife, Mother, Murderer: The Marie Hilley Story
One Terrific Guy (1986) (TV) (as Janette Lane Bradbury)
“Strike Force” …. Julie (1 episode, 1981)
– The Predator (1981) TV Episode (as Janette Lane Bradbury) …. Julie
“Walking Tall” (1 episode, 1981)
– Company Town (1981) TV Episode
Where the Ladies Go (1980) (TV) …. Tasha
“The Waltons” …. Ronie Cotter (1 episode, 1979)
– The Diploma (1979) TV Episode (as Janette Lane Bradbury) …. Ronie Cotter
Breaking Up Is Hard to Do (1979) (TV) …. Ruth Doyle
The Chinese Typewriter (1979) (TV) …. Louise-Jill
A Real American Hero (1978) (TV) …. Debbie Pride
… aka Hard Stick
Just a Little Inconvenience (1977) (TV) …. B-Girl
“Westside Medical” …. Sister Mary Dolores (2 episodes, 1977)
– My Physician, My Friend: Part 2 (1977) TV Episode (as Janette Lane Bradbury) …. Sister Mary Dolores
– My Physician, My Friend: Part 1 (1977) TV Episode (as Janette Lane Bradbury) …. Sister Mary Dolores
“Gemini Man” …. Amy Nichols (1 episode, 1976)
– Night Train to Dallas (1976) TV Episode …. Amy Nichols
Serpico: The Deadly Game (1976) (TV) …. Carol
… aka The Deadly Game
“Serpico” …. Carol (1 episode, 1976)
– The Deadly Game (1976) TV Episode …. Carol
“The Rockford Files” …. Houston Preli (1 episode, 1976)
… aka Jim Rockford, Private Investigator (USA: syndication title)
– Where’s Houston? (1976) TV Episode …. Houston Preli
“McMillan & Wife” …. Jennifer Carter (1 episode, 1976)
… aka McMillan (USA: sixth season title)
– Greed (1976) TV Episode …. Jennifer Carter
“Police Story” …. Sharon (1 episode, 1975)
– Vice: 24 Hours (1975) TV Episode …. Sharon
The Ultimate Warrior (1975) …. Barrie
… aka The Barony (International: English title)
… aka The Last Warrior
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) …. Rita Eberhart
“Doc Elliot” …. Emily (1 episode, 1974)
– Things That Might Have Been (1974) TV Episode …. Emily
“The Streets of San Francisco” …. Rosie Johnson (1 episode, 1974)
– The Hard Breed (1974) TV Episode …. Rosie Johnson
“Banacek” …. Sally James (1 episode, 1974)
– Horse of a Slightly Different Color (1974) TV Episode …. Sally James
“Kung Fu” …. Annie Buchanan (1 episode, 1973)
– An Eye for an Eye (1973) TV Episode …. Annie Buchanan
“The Bold Ones: The New Doctors” …. Cassie Howard (1 episode, 1972)
… aka The New Doctors
– End Theme (1972) TV Episode …. Cassie Howard
“Alias Smith and Jones” …. Ellen Anderson (1 episode, 1972)
– The Day the Amnesty Came Through (1972) TV Episode …. Ellen Anderson
“Banyon” (1 episode, 1972)
– A Date with Death (1972) TV Episode
“The F.B.I.” …. Meda Jo Phipps (2 episodes, 1968-1972)
– The Loner (1972) TV Episode
– The Nightmare (1968) TV Episode …. Meda Jo Phipps
“Insight” …. Annie McMahon (1 episode, 1972)
– The Death of Superman (1972) TV Episode …. Annie McMahon
“Mannix” …. Karen Gunnarson (1 episode, 1972)
– Scapegoat (1972) TV Episode (as Janette Lane Bradbury) …. Karen Gunnarson
“McCloud” …. Carol Harrington (1 episode, 1972)
– Give My Regrets to Broadway (1972) TV Episode …. Carol Harrington
“Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law” …. Carol Ann MacMurdy (1 episode, 1972)
– Run, Carol, Run (1972) TV Episode …. Carol Ann MacMurdy
Another Part of the Forest (1972) (TV) …. Laurette
“The Young Lawyers” …. Charlene Neiley (1 episode, 1971)
– Down at the House of Truth, Visiting (1971) TV Episode …. Charlene Neiley
“Storefront Lawyers” (1 episode, 1971)
… aka Men at Law (USA: new title)
– The Dark World of Harry Anders (1971) TV Episode
Maybe I’ll Come Home in the Spring (1971) (TV) …. Susie Miller
… aka Deadly Desire
… aka Maybe I’ll Be Home in the Spring
“The Interns” …. Irene (1 episode, 1970)
– Act of God (1970) TV Episode …. Irene
“The Partridge Family” …. Janet (1 episode, 1970)
– Love at First Slight (1970) TV Episode …. Janet
“The Mod Squad” …. Cindy (1 episode, 1970)
– See the Eagles Dying (1970) TV Episode …. Cindy
“Bracken’s World” …. Miriam Halsey (1 episode, 1970)
– Murder Off Camera (1970) TV Episode …. Miriam Halsey
“Medical Center” …. Maggie Seller (1 episode, 1970)
– Between Dark and Daylight (1970) TV Episode …. Maggie Seller
Dial Hot Line (1970) (TV) …. Pam Carruthers
“Gunsmoke” …. Merry Florene / … (6 episodes, 1965-1969)
… aka Gun Law (UK)
… aka Marshal Dillon (USA: rerun title)
– The Still (1969) TV Episode …. Merry Florene
– Gold Town (1969) TV Episode …. Merry Florene
– Uncle Finney (1968) TV Episode …. Merry Florene
– Hill Girl (1968) TV Episode …. Merry Florene
– Muley (1967) TV Episode …. Lucky
(1 more)
“Then Came Bronson” …. Bella (1 episode, 1969)
– Where Will the Trumpets Be? (1969) TV Episode …. Bella
“Judd for the Defense” …. Penny Hale (1 episode, 1969)
– Between the Dark and the Daylight (1969) TV Episode …. Penny Hale
“The Iron Horse” …. Rachel Sparrow (1 episode, 1967)
– Volcano Wagon (1967) TV Episode …. Rachel Sparrow
“The Fugitive” …. Janet (1 episode, 1965)
– Wings of an Angel (1965) TV Episode …. Janet
“Mr. Novak” …. Ellen Westfall (1 episode, 1964)
– Love Amongst the Grown-Ups (1964) TV Episode …. Ellen Westfall
“Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre” …. Julia (1 episode, 1964)
… aka The Chrysler Theater
… aka Universal Star Time (syndication title)
– Out on the Outskirts of Town (1964) TV Episode …. Julia
The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1958) (TV)
Writer:
From the Midst of Pain (2008) (written by)
Producer:
From the Midst of Pain (2008 (producer)
Self:
From the Midst of Pain (2008) …. Herself