Jane Seymour OBE (born Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg; 15 February 1951) is a British actress.

Critical acclaim followed, with a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series for her role in Captains and the Kings (1976).

She received three additional Golden Globe nominations in that same category: one for her portrayal of Wallis Simpson, the twice-divorced American wife of King Edward VIII, in the television film The Woman He Loved (1988), and another two (in consecutive years) for her role in the miniseries War and Remembrance (1988-1989).

Her War and Remembrance role also garnered her a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Special.

Seymour also won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Special for her portrayal of Maria Callas in Onassis: The Richest Man in the World (1988).

[7][8][9] Seymour has stated she learned Dutch from her mother and her fellow survivors from the Japanese internment camp, who frequently spent holidays together in the Netherlands when she was a child.

Encouraged by her parents (who sent her to live with family friends in Geneva to practise her languages), she learned to speak fluent French.

[10] Seymour's paternal grandfather Lee Grahame had come to live in the East End of London after escaping the Czarist pogroms when he was 14.

[12][13][14] He joined the medical branch of the RAFVR after the outbreak of war, serving in England, Belgium, Italy and South Africa,[4] ending his service as a squadron leader with a mention in despatches.

[4] A close associate of Patrick Steptoe, he assisted in pioneering discussions on in-vitro fertilisation and published papers on adolescent and teenage sexual behaviours.

The effort was a decided break from her earlier work and marked the start of her friendship with co-star Christopher Reeve.

That same year, she won an Emmy Award for playing Maria Callas in the television movie Onassis: The Richest Man in the World.

Later that year, Seymour guest-starred as a law school professor on an episode of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother and as a wealthy client on the Fox legal drama Justice.

She was a contestant on season five of the US reality show Dancing with the Stars; she finished in sixth place, along with her partner Tony Dovolani.

Seymour guest starred in "One Life to Lose", a soap opera-themed episode of the ABC crime dramedy Castle.

In April 2016, she starred as Florence Lancaster in Noël Coward's play The Vortex, presented in Singapore by the British Theatre Playhouse.

[22] In 2022, Seymour began playing the title role on the Irish[23] Acorn TV series Harry Wild.

[34] Seymour is a celebrity ambassador for Childhelp, a national nonprofit organisation dedicated to helping victims of child abuse and neglect.

[35] In 2007, she sponsored a children's Art Pillow contest as part of the Jane Seymour Collection, with the proceeds going to Childhelp.

[39] In the Playboy interview, Seymour revealed that she briefly quit acting after being sexually harassed by an unnamed film producer in the early 1970s.

An event organised by Bob Geldof to raise funds for the ongoing Ethiopian famine caused by the policies of dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, the finale of the show saw her partake in a mock wedding with Freddie Mercury.

[44] In 2008, Seymour replaced Selina Scott as the new face of fashion label CC (formerly known as Country Casuals) under the Austin Reed banner of retailers.