Jane Novak

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Jane Novak
Woodland Hills
, California, U.S.
Occupation(s)Actress, author
Years active1913–1954
Spouse
Frank Newburg
​
​
(m. 1915; div. 1918)​
Children1
RelativesEva Novak (sister)
Anne Schaefer (aunt)[1]

Jane Novak (born Johana Barbara Novak; January 12, 1896 – February 3, 1990) was an

American actress of the silent film
era.

Background

Jane Novak was born Johana Barbara Novak in

St. Louis, Missouri to Bohemian immigrant Joseph Jerome Novak and his wife Barbara Medek. Joseph Novak died when Jane was still a child and Barbara was left to raise 5 children.[2] Her younger sister Eva
also became an actress.

Novak attended

motion pictures in 1913 at the age of 17.[2] The actress began in a stage stock company with her uncle in St. Louis.[2]
Novak's career extended into the sound film medium, appeared in a total of 115 movies in her career.

Career

She appeared in a movie on her first day in Southern California, before there was a film studio in Hollywood. There she met Frank Newburg, who was, at the time, leading man to

American Mutoscope and Biograph companies. Newburg took her to a studio in Santa Monica, California, where her aunt Anne Schafer was a popular star. Newburg and Novak later married in 1915[citation needed] and had one daughter. However, the marriage was short lived, and the couple divorced in 1918.[2]

Novak endured as a performer, in part, by sacrificing sensational roles for roles as leading women in more wholesome films. Some actresses who were Novak's contemporaries quickly found stardom, yet were forgotten soon afterward, while she was considered an "old-fashioned girl." As a result, Novak, refused to work in films with other leading ladies. She played opposite

Alan Hale, Thomas Moore, and Lewis Stone. At one time, she was engaged to marry Western star William S. Hart
, but their marriage never took place. She made five films with Hart.

Publicity photo of Jane Novak from Stars of the Photoplay (1924)

Novak's movies often were based on outdoor stories. Some of these include

Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.
, Novak was the first film star to paid in four figures for a single movie. At this time, performers were only paid while a movie was shooting. An entire film was completed in three or four weeks.

Novak's sister Eva Novak

Novak's last starring role was opposite

Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom. She also appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent in 1940, having met him previously in the 1920s when making The Prude's Fall
(1925).

In 1974, the former silent screen star published a cookbook titled Treasury of Chicken Cooking. The volume is a collection of 300 recipes compiled by Novak over the years, all of them her own.

Novak's last appearance on camera was in 1988 for the documentary

ITV
.

Jane Novak died in Woodland Hills, California of a stroke in 1990 at the age of 94.

Partial filmography

Sources

  • Modesto, California News, "Jane Novak-She's Filmland's Old-Fashioned Girl", March 8, 1922, page 5
  • Nevada State Journal, "Silent Films Star Jane Novak Talks at Length About Her Past", Friday, November 22, 1974, page 37

References

  1. ^ a b Brown, John W. (2008). Missouri Legends: Famous people from the Show-Me State. St. Louis: Reedy Press. pp. 176, 177.
  2. ^ a b c d e The Independent, London, February 1990

External links


Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jane_Novak&oldid=1077977152"