Jane Lawrence Smith (February 3, 1915 – August 5, 2005), born Jane Brotherton, was an American actress and

opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

singer who was part of the New York art scene beginning in the 1950s.

Life and work

Jane Brotherton was born in

Bozeman Bozeman ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Gallatin County, Montana, United States. The 2020 United States census put Bozeman's population at 53,293, making it Montana's fourth-largest city. It is the principal city of the Bozeman, Montan ...

Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...

, and grew up in

Mount Vernon, Washington Mount Vernon is the county seat of and the most populous city in Skagit County, Washington, United States. A central location in the Skagit River Valley, the city is located south of the U.S.–Canada border and north of Seattle. The popul ...

. Her father was Lawrence Langham Brotherton, a founder of the Bozeman Canning Company. She attended Mount Vernon High School and the University of Washington School of Drama. In 1943 she, created the small role of Gertie in ''

Oklahoma! ''Oklahoma!'' is the first musical theater, musical written by the duo of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs's 1931 play, ''Green Grow the Lilacs (play), Green Grow the Lilacs''. Set in farm country outside the town of ...

'' on Broadway. The same year, she married Tony Smith, an

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

who later achieved fame as a

minimalist In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

. Her close friend

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three ...

was best man at her wedding. The Smiths became the parents of three daughters,

Kiki Smith Kiki Smith (born January 18, 1954) is a German-born American artist whose work has addressed the themes of sex, birth and regeneration. Her figurative work of the late 1980s and early 1990s confronted subjects such as AIDS, feminism, and gender ...

Seton Smith Seton Smith (born 1955) is an American artist photographer. Early life and education Smith was born in 1955 in Newark, New Jersey. Her father was artist Tony Smith and her mother was actress and opera singer Jane Lawrence.Roberta Smith"Jane Law ...

and Beatrice (Bebe) Smith Robinson. She performed the lead role in the

no wave No wave was an avant-garde music genre and visual art scene that emerged in the late 1970s in Downtown New York City. The term was a pun based on the rejection of commercial new wave music. Reacting against punk rock's recycling of rock and r ...

opera '' XS: The Opera Opus'' (1984-6) that was created by composer

Rhys Chatham Rhys Chatham (born September 19, 1952) is an American composer, guitarist, trumpet player, multi-instrumentalist (flutes in C, alto and bass, keyboard), primarily active in avant-garde and minimalist music. He is best known for his "guitar orche ...

and artist

Joseph Nechvatal Joseph Nechvatal (born January 15, 1951) is an American post-conceptual digital artist and art theoretician who creates computer-assisted paintings and computer animations, often using custom computer viruses. Life and work Joseph Nechva ...

.Pollock, Jackson
"Number 7."
''http://www.metmuseum.org.'' Retrieved January 28, 2014. Her only film role was that of Clementine Brown in ''Sailor's Holiday'' (1944) opposite Arthur Lake and

Shelley Winters Shelley Winters (born Shirley Schrift; August 18, 1920 – January 14, 2006) was an American film actress whose career spanned seven decades. She won Academy Awards for ''The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film), The Diary of Anne Frank'' (1959) and ' ...

and in which she was credited as June Lawrence. She died at age of 90 on August 5, 2005, at her home in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village, or simply the Village, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to the north, Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the s ...

, NY.

Broadway appearances

*''

'' (1943) as Gertie Cummings (opening night cast) *'' Inside U.S.A.'' (1948) in multiple roles (opening night cast) *''

Where's Charley? ''Where's Charley?'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by George Abbott. The story was based on the 1892 play '' Charley's Aunt'' by Brandon Thomas. The musical debuted on Broadway in 1948 and was revived on Broadway ...

'' (1948) as Donna Lucia D'Alvadorez (opening night cast)

References

External links

* *

mp3 of "murmuring tOngue Of Ovid" (20:53) Jane Lawrence Smith reading from

Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...

's poem ''Metamorphosis'' in 1985 as part of an

audio art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary time-based medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, ...

piece by

Ubuweb UbuWeb is a "a pirate shadow library consisting of hundreds of thousands of freely downloadable avant-garde artifacts." It offers visual, concrete and sound poetry, expanding to include film and sound art mp3 archives. The site was created by ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lawrence, Jane 1915 births 2005 deaths People from Mount Vernon, Washington People from Bozeman, Montana American operatic sopranos American expatriate actresses in Germany American stage actresses American film actresses Singers from Washington (state) Singers from Montana Actresses from Washington (state) Actresses from Montana 20th-century American actresses 20th-century American women opera singers 21st-century American women