Jane Winton ~ The Green Eyed Goddess

Jane Winton was a Ziegfeld Follies performer who became a popular actress and singer

She was born on October 10, 1905 (some sources say 1907) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Tragically her father died when she was four and her mother died two years later. Jane was raised by several different relatives. At the age of sixteen she ran away from home and moved to New York City to become an actress. She joined the Ziegfeld Follies in 1923. The beautiful red-head made her film debut in the 1924 drama Three Women. Then she was offered a long term contract at Warner Brothers. Jane had supporting roles in The Love Toy, My Official Wife, and Why Girls Go Back Home with Patsy Ruth Miller. She was nicknamed "the green eyed goddess." In 1926 she appeared in the drama Don Juan which was the first Vitaphone sound film. Jane also costarred with Marion Davies in the comedies The Patsy and The Fair Co-Ed. On June 27, 1927 she married forty-six year old writer Charles Kenyon.

After they divorced in 1930 she married Horace Gumbel, a New York broker. The couple split up four years later. She married Michael T. Gottlieb, a wealthy stockbroker, in January of 1936. By this time her film career was in trouble. Jane made several shorts including The Weekend Mystery and The Light Fantastic. Her final acting role was in the 1937 musical Backstage. Then she began a second career as an operatic singer. She performed with the National Grand Opera Company in the United States and England. During the early 1950s she published three novels. In her spare time she enjoyed sculpting and painting. She and her husband owned homes in Arizona and The Virgin Islands. In October of 1956 she was hospitalized in New York for a serious operation. Tragically on September 22,1959 she died following a long illness. Jane was only fifty-three years old. She was buried at Temple Israel Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.