Jane Hitchcock
- Actress
Jane Hitchcock was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1953 to Ray and Amelia Hitchcock. She was their fourth child. She grew up with three older brothers. Her father was a farmer, whose crops were wiped out by the beetle, so he ended up working at the local electric company. She studied ballet as a child. Then, she was chosen as one of two girls from all
over America for a scholarship to train at the school of Balanchine for
the world's premier ballet company, The New York City Ballet. She made
her first airplane trip to New York City. Within weeks of arriving,
photographers stopped her in the street wanting to photograph her.
Wilhelmina, the famous Vogue model of the 1960s, signed Jane as her 5th
model when she started her new agency. She was now Wilhelmina's protégé
and being schooled to be a great model. Her dance training made her a
natural and gave her posture and grace. She was able to bring her love
of the performing arts to the camera which made her an ideal model for
fashion photography. She regularly appeared in magazines, such as
Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Elle and Glamour. Her fame spread, and the press
reported her rise at such a young age in Look and Life magazines. She
did the French Collections for Vogue and Elleat, when she was just
fifteen, and when she turned sixteen, she created a book on modeling at
age sixteen. She then appeared in television commercials. When she was
nineteen, she married and had her daughter Serena the same year. In the early 1970s, Columbia studio offered Jane a contract, but she turned them down because she didn't want to act in exploitative films. She continued to model and became friends with another model
Cybill Shepherd after working together
on an assignment. Cybill became a successful actress but was in a
public relations mess when director
Peter Bogdanovich left his wife for
her. Columbia studio refused to cast Cybill in Bogdanovich's film
Nickelodeon (1976) for a role he created especially for her. She was
crushed but magnanimously recommended Jane for the role of the silent
film actress. This time, Jane agreed to work for Columbia studio. She was the only novice in a star-studded cast that
included the then-hot leading men
Burt Reynolds and Ryan O'Neal
fighting for her character's affections, creating a love triangle in
the period film. Although, she gave a charming performance, she
received mixed reviews, and the film became a flop. She was
disappointed and acted in only one more project, before returning to
her modeling career, which she had always preferred over her film career. In the early 1990s, she turned forty and became an
important face for cosmetic companies, which began to create
advertisements featuring "ageless beauties." In 1993, she modeled with
her then-twenty-two-year-old daughter Serena in an international
campaign for Ferretti Jeans. She landed modeling jobs with Calvin Klein, Maybelline, and Vichy. In 2016, a sixty-three-year old Jane moved to Australia and continues to model to this day.
