Jan Clayton
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Jan Clayton (August 26, 1917, Tularosa, New Mexico - August 28, 1983, West Hollywood, California) was a film, musical theatre, and television actress.
[edit] Career
None of her film roles were notable, except for an unbilled role as a singing inmate in The Snake Pit, but in 1945, she was selected to play Julie Jordan in the original Broadway production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic musical, Carousel. This ultimately became her most famous role, and it led to her leaving that show to star in the 1946 Broadway revival of Show Boat, as Magnolia, while Carousel was still continuing its Broadway run.
The 1946 production of Show Boat was the longest-running revival of a stage musical up to that time - 416 performances. Ms. Clayton can be heard on the original cast recordings of both Carousel (1945) and Show Boat (1946). The Show Boat album was the first American production of the show to be recorded with its original cast - American Original cast recordings did not yet exist in 1927, when the first production of the musical opened on Broadway.
Later generations may remember Clayton as the mother on Lassie (aka Jeff's Collie in re-runs). She played Jeff Miller (Tommy Rettig)'s mother.
Also in 1954, she was one of the many guest stars in a spectacular tribute to Rodgers and Hammerstein on television, known as the General Foods 25th Anniversary Show. The program featured all the then-surviving stars - with the exception of Alfred Drake - of all the classic shows that the team had written between 1943 and 1954. Clayton and John Raitt, in full makeup and costume, performed the If I Loved You scene (also known as the Bench Scene) from Carousel. It was the first opportunity for millions of viewers to see a scene from the musical - none of the film versions of the Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musicals had yet been released.
In later years, she appeared many times on television, as a frequent guest star in many series.
Volunteered at the Alcoholism Council of Greater Los Angeles as a receptionist in the late 1970s.
She was married to actor Russell Hayden from 1938 to 1943 when they divorced. They had one child, daughter Sandra, born in 1940. In 1946, Jan Clayton married attorney Robert (Bob) Lerner, brother of famed Broadway lyricist Alan Jay Lerner. They had three children: daughter Robin (born in 1948); daughter Karen (born in 1949); and son Joe (born in 1950). She and Lerner were divorced in 1958, the result of a drinking problem which she had developed following the death of her eldest daughter, Sandra, in an automobile accident in 1956. (She was appearing in the LASSIE series at the time of her daughter's death.) Her third and final marriage was to pianist/film and television composer George Greeley. They were married in 1966, and divorced in 1968. A couple of years later, Jan Clayton was able to recover from her alcoholism with the help of A.A. and the National Council on Alcoholism. From 1974 to 1980, she toured the country - all 48 contiguous states - giving lectures on alcoholism in order to reach others with the same problem. In a 1976 episode of POLICE STORY, entitled "The Long Bull", she appeared as a character named "Janet Handy", who, like herself, was involved in counseling alcoholics.
Jan Clayton died of cancer in 1983, two days after her 66th birthday.
