Biography

Jane Connell

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Jane Connell was born on October 27, 1925 in Berkeley, California, USA. She was an actress, known for Mame (1974), See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989) and Bewitched (1964). She was married to Gordon Connell. She died on September 22, 2013 in Englewood, New Jersey, USA.

Appeared in six different episodes of Bewitched (1964) playing four different characters including Queen Victoria, Martha Washington and Mother Goose.
For nearly 50 years, she was a New York theater fixture, which includes Broadway musicals, summer stock, national tours, and cabaret. Best known on stage for her Mrs. Peachum in "The Threepenny Opera" and Agnes Gooch in "Mame", which she also played on film in the Lucille Ball version, after Madeline Kahn was fired from the role. In addition she played Carol Burnett's famed role of Princess Winifred in the original London version of "Once Upon a Mattress".
Assumed the role of feisty accompanist Jeannette in the Broadway production of "The Full Monty" in 2001 when its originator, Kathleen Freeman, became ill with cancer. After Freeman's death, Connell played it for a year on Broadway, then toured for more than a year.
Nominated for the 1987 Tony Award (New York City) for Supporting or Features Actress in a Musical for "Me and My Girl".
Jane Connell was interviewed by author Craig Hamrick for his book "Big Lou", the biography of actor Louis Edmonds. Many of her comments, plus a mini-bio at the end, appear in the book. Jane and Louis costarred in a lively 1960s musical that died on its way to Broadway and starred Kaye Ballard. It was called "Royal Flush," and Hamrick devotes several pages to coverage of this otherwise fairly obscure musical.

There's no question that theater has changed through the years. The one thing that bothers me is that so many of today's young actors come from television and have not been taught theater technique. They don't realize when they're upstaging you. It's not done out of meanness or trickery. They just think there's a camera over their shoulder that is filming the other actor. But I don't complain about it. I just look out front and deliver the lines.
I was born a character person. I was always eccentric, never a conventional beauty. I grew up in the Depression, the youngest of four kids. I wanted to make people laugh, because making my family laugh helped us forget our concerns. And I found that I could do it.

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