Biography

Had a son, Stefan Jude Janis (1955-2017) with ex-wife, June Dickson Wright.

At age 10, he fought with his sister and put his hand through a glass door, cutting the little finger on his left hand down to the bone. He suffered from hand problems for the rest of his life, essentially playing with only nine fingers. When he was in his forties, he developed psoriatic arthritis that spread to both hands and wrists, causing great pain. He become a spokesman for the Arthritis Foundation, for which he played several benefit concerts.

His discography covered repertoire from Bach to David W. Guion and included major piano concertos from Mozart to Rachmaninoff and Liszt to Prokofiev.

Janis and his wife, Maria Cooper, daughter of screen actor Gary Cooper, wrote his autobiography Chopin and Beyond: My Extraordinary Life in Music and the Paranormal, which was released in November 2010.

Janis studied with Horowitz from 1944 until 1948.