Jennifer Jayne R.i.p

[plasticjock]

It has been reported on Rogues & Vagabonds that actress Jennifer Jayne died on 23 April.







Jennifer Jayne had a prolific film career both as a leading actress and later in character roles. For several years she was associated with horror films and she also wrote two successful screenplays under the pseudonym Jay Firbank for Hammer Films, Tales That Witness Madness (1973) and Son of Dracula (1974) with Dennis Price.



Born in 1932, she played leading roles in films such as A Woman of Mystery (1958) and the cult horror film The Trollenberg Terror (1958) Other horror films in which she made guest appearances included Dr Terror's House of Horrors (1965) and Hysteria (1965). In 1983 she appeared opposite Laurence Olivier in the cold war thriller The Jigsaw Man. She died on 23 April, 2006.

[smudge]

That is really sad news indeed. I always liked Jennifer Jayne. Only the other day I was watching TOLLENBERG on Movies 4 Men.



She shall be sorely missed.



Respect.



SMUDGE

[Harbottle]

Very sad news.

[julian_craster]

I saw JJ in 'Man in a Suitcase' a couple of days ago on ITV4, directed by Freddie Francis.

Very good she was too...





From The Independent

24 May 2006 09:35 Home > News > People > Obituaries



Jennifer Jayne

Hedda in 'William Tell'



Jennifer Jones (Jennifer Jayne), actress: born 14 November 1931; married

1958 Peter Mullins; died 23 April 2006.



During the late Fifties and early Sixties, Jennifer Jayne was a popular star

of lightweight films and television, particularly in her regular role as

Tell's wife, Hedda, in the TV series William Tell (1958-59). She had

reddish-brown hair and her small mouth sometimes seemed set in a permanent

pout.



Her real name was Jennifer Jones, which she altered in order to avoid

confusion with the Hollywood actress of the same name. She was born in

Yorkshire to theatrical parents; "it never occurred to me to do anything

else", she said, than act. Her film début was a minor walk-on in Once a

Jolly Swagman (1948), followed by The Blue Lamp (1949). Both of these

starred Dirk Bogarde and, coincidentally, the mystery Black Widow, in which

she appeared in 1951, featured Anthony Forwood, Bogarde's lifelong partner.



After guest appearances in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1956), The

Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1956) and Sword of Freedom (1957), Jayne made

logical casting for the next historical adventure series from the

film-making division of Lew Grade's ATV, William Tell.



Seen now, the series has a charming naivety. With her hair dyed blonde, as

Hedda, wife of the Swiss hero (Conrad Phillips), Jayne got to take part in

several swordfights, something denied to heroines in similar series of that

time. Near its completion, she married the series's art director, Peter

Mullins, whose credits would include Alfie and several of the Pink Panther

series. When Mullins went to work on Whiplash (1960), a forgotten attempt by

Grade to stimulate TV production in Australia, Jayne was hurriedly flown

over to play a kidnapped actress in an episode written by the future Star

Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.



Jayne was a romantic lead in Raising the Wind (1961), set in a music academy

and a "Carry On" in all but name, with largely the same cast and crew. In

the same vein, she was the leading lady in a Norman Wisdom vehicle, On the

Beat (1962), but her film career is better characterised by her association

with the outstanding cinematographer Freddie Francis.



When Francis turned director, he cast her as a caring nurse in Hysteria

(1964) for Hammer. Then came the first of Amicus Productions' horror

anthologies, Dr Terror's House of Horrors (1964), with Peter Cushing and

Christopher Lee joined by the unlikely additions of Roy Castle, Alan Freeman

and a pre-Hollywood Donald Sutherland; Jayne was in its last story, as

Sutherland's vampire bride. Francis next used her as a victim of alien mind

control in the brightly coloured and extremely silly They Came From Beyond

Space (1967).



Unsurprisingly, given her other work, she did two episodes of Ivanhoe

(1958), starring Roger Moore; seven years later, Moore got to raise his

eyebrows at her, in a Paris composed of back projections and obvious studio

sets, as the Saint.



Jayne became a regular, this time early weekend-evening swashbuckling for

the BBC, in Further Adventures of the Musketeers (1967), starring Joss

Ackland and Brian Blessed. She was given better acting opportunities with

Girl of My Dreams (1966) for BBC2's Theatre 625, written by Hugh Whitemore,

with a young Edward Fox; Everyone's Rich Except Us (1967), a "Wednesday

Play" satirising corrupt businessmen; and End of Story (1969, for YTV),

about a hack TV writer of action dramas (Peter Barkworth) given the chance

to create something more insightful.



In common with many actors, Jayne's own career dovetailed into writing

scripts. Under the pseudonym Jay Fairbank, she wrote, and Francis directed,

Witness Madness, a portmanteau in the Amicus tradition. However, the movie's

producers insisted on, in Francis's words, "horrifying" it and retitling it

Tales that Witness Madness (1973), due to Amicus's success with Francis's

Tales from the Crypt.



Jayne and Francis then attempted to rescue Count Downe, a would-be

horror-comedy vehicle for Ringo Starr (who also produced) and Harry Nilsson;

according to Francis the production was utter chaos and, although retitled

Son of Dracula (1974), it was never completed, or publicly shown, until

released on video 10 years later in the United States only.



Jennifer Jayne's last work was again for Francis, as a barmaid in his The

Doctor and the Devils (1985), a version of the Burke and Hare story deriving

from a script written by Dylan Thomas 40 years earlier.



Gavin Gaughan

[raymundohpl]

Much in the tradition of the late Rene Ray, Countess of Midleton(1911-1993) who wrote and adapted for television her novel THE STRANGE WORLD OF PLANET X(1957, known in the U.S. as COSMIC MONSTERS in its film adaptation) and the still active Dulcie Gray, C.B.E.(1919- ) who has written 24 books, 17 of which are detective stories featuring her series sleuth Inspector Cardiff, as well as numerous "conte cruels" anthologized in collections like THE PAN BOOK OF HORROR STORIES Series, the late Jennifer Jayne(14 November 1931 Yorkshire, U.K. - 21 April 2006 London, U.K.) was an actress as well as a screenwriter, having appeared in horror/sci-fi genre films like THE TROLLENBERG TERROR(1958, known as THE CRAWLING EYE in the U.S.) and DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS(1965), Jennifer also wrote the screenplays for TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS(1973) which was directed by the noted Freddie Francis, who also directed the earlier DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS, and SON OF DRACULA(1974, not the Lon Chaney Jr. Universal 1940s' classic directed by Robert Siodmak,but the 1974 version with Harry Nilsson as "Count Downe" , Ringo Starr as Merlin the Magician and YES, also AGAIN DIRECTED by Freddie Francis!!!!!). Jennifer also appeared as William Tell's wife Hedda(NOT Hopper!) in the U.K. T.V. Series WILLIAM TELL(1958-59). She was a talented and lovely actress and screenwriter, and she will be sorely missed.

Raymond Funamoto, Honolulu, Hawaii