Janice Rule

Janice Rule
Born	August 15, 1931(1931-08-15) Norwood, Ohio, U.S.
Died	October 17, 2003 (aged 72) New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1951–1986
Spouse(s)	N. Richard Nash, Robert Thom, Ben Gazzara

Janice Rule (August 15, 1931 – October 17, 2003) was an American actress.

Born in Norwood, Ohio, her career included stage, screen and television work. Ms. Rule studied ballet and began dancing in Chicago nightclubs in her teens. She soon attracted attention in Hollywood and made her film debut in 1951. Among her noteworthy film roles were Emily Stewart in The Chase, Virginia in Goodbye My Fancy, Willie in Robert Altman's 3 Women, journalist Kate Newman in Costa Gavras' 1982 political thriller Missing, Burt Lancaster's bitter ex-lover in The Swimmer, and Kevin Costner's mother in the bicycle racing film American Flyers.

She was pictured on the cover of Life magazine on Jan. 8, 1951, as a rising young actress. Her films in the 1950's included "Starlift," "Holiday for Sinners," "A Woman's Devotion" and "Bell, Book and Candle," in which she was the strait-laced fiancée who loses James Stewart.

Ms. Rule was in the original cast of William Inge's "Picnic," which was also Paul Newman's Broadway debut. She played Madge Owens, the naïve beauty. Among her other Broadway shows were "The Flowering Peach," "The Happiest Girl in the World" and Michael V. Gazzo's "Night Circus," a 1958 production with Ben Gazzara.

She was troubled by the attitude toward women's beauty in the studios in the early 1950's. She was afraid of losing her individuality and fought to retain a sense of her own identity. She was in great demand during these era precisely because she could depict strong, non-conventional women. The jaded publicists and studio make up artists described her as "being careless about her appearance."

Personal Life:

Miss Rule had a brief engagement to Farley Granger in 1956 followed by a relationship with Ralph Meeker. Miss Rule married and divorced three times to N. Richard Nash, Robert Thom and Ben Gazzara.

During the 1960's she became interested in psychoanalysis. She began studying it in 1973 and received a Ph.D. 10 years later from the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute in Los Angeles. She practiced in New York and Los Angeles and continued to act occasionally until her death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 2003.

She is survived by her daughters, Kate Thom Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gazzara, both of Brooklyn; her sisters, Kathleen Rule, of Oceano, Calif.; Ann Nader, of San Marcos, Calif.; and Emily Forbes, of Las Cruces, N.M.; and her brother Ralph, of Mallorca, Spain.

Filmography

• L.A. Bad (1986)
• American Flyers (1985)
• Missing (1982)
• 3 Women (1977)
• Kid Blue (1973)
• Gumshoe (1971)
• The Devil and Miss Sarah (1971)
• Trial Run (1969) (TV)
• Shadow on the Land (1968)
• The Swimmer (1968)
• The Ambushers (1967)
• Welcome to Hard Times (1967)
• Alvarez Kelly (1966)
• The Chase (1966)
• Invitation to a Gunfighter (1964)
• The Subterraneans (1960)
• Bell Book and Candle (1958)
• Gun for a Coward (1957)
• A Woman's Devotion (1956)
• Rogue's March (1953)
• Holiday for Sinners (1952)
• Starlift with Ron Hagerthy (1951)
• Goodbye, My Fancy (1951)
• Fourteen Hours (1951) (uncredited)

External links

• Janice Rule at the Internet Movie Database
• Janice Rule at the Internet Broadway Database
• Janice Rule at Find a Grave

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