50 Fun Facts About Famous Janes

Jane Goodall, who arrived at Gombe in 1960 with no degree, watched chimpanzees do what supposedly human-only thing?

Make tools is exactly what she saw them do, stripping leaves from twigs to fish termites out of a mound. Her mentor Louis Leakey said science must now redefine man, redefine tool, or accept chimpanzees as human.

Jane Austen's 1815 novel Emma was loosely reworked into which 1995 teen comedy set in Beverly Hills?

Clueless turns matchmaker Emma Woodhouse into Cher Horowitz, a wealthy and popular teenager played by Alicia Silverstone. Director Amy Heckerling had read the novel in college and loved its heroine's positivity.

Jane Fonda starred in both the 1980 comedy 9 to 5 and Netflix's Grace and Frankie alongside which comedian?

Lily Tomlin and Fonda play women whose husbands reveal they are in love with each other in Grace and Frankie. Back in 9 to 5, the third star beside them was Dolly Parton.

Which Brontë sister wrote Jane Eyre, first published in 1847 under the male-sounding pen name Currer Bell?

Charlotte picked Currer Bell to keep her own initials, just as her sisters became Ellis and Acton Bell. Her first novel, The Professor, had been rejected by publishers.

Calamity Jane, the frontierswoman born Martha Jane Canary, is buried in Deadwood beside which gunfighter?

Wild Bill Hickok had been shot dead at a Deadwood poker table in 1876. Men who planned her funeral later said he had no use for her, so burying her at his side was a joke on him.

Mary Jane Watson, the green-eyed redhead known as MJ, is the main love interest and later wife of which superhero?

Spider-Man spent two years of comics dodging a blind date with her, a running joke about his Aunt May's matchmaking. Readers did not see her face until 1966.

Lady Jane Grey, England's Nine Days Queen of July 1553, was deposed in favour of which royal cousin?

Mary I at first spared the teenager's life. Jane was beheaded at the Tower of London in 1554, after her father joined a rebellion against the new queen's plan to marry Philip of Spain.

Which actress shaved her head to play Lieutenant Jordan O'Neil in Ridley Scott's 1997 military drama G.I. Jane?

Demi Moore also went through two weeks of rigorous military training for the part. In her autobiography she called the film her proudest professional achievement.

In Stranger Things, Jane Hopper is far better known by which number, tattooed on her left forearm?

Eleven gets her name when the boys notice the 011 tattoo she was given at Hawkins National Laboratory. Police chief Jim Hopper later adopts her with a forged birth certificate.

Jane Lynch broke through as Sue Sylvester, the aggressive cheerleading coach in which musical comedy series?

Glee ran on Fox from 2009 to 2015. Lynch went on to host the NBC game show Hollywood Game Night and the American revival of Weakest Link.

Jane Seymour became the third wife of Henry VIII in 1536, days after the execution of which queen?

Anne Boleyn was executed on 19 May 1536, and Henry was betrothed to Jane the very next day. Jane was the only one of his wives given a queen's funeral, and he was later buried beside her.

Actress Jane Seymour, later TV's Dr. Quinn, played the psychic Bond girl Solitaire in which James Bond film?

Live and Let Die made her internationally famous in 1973. Born Joyce Frankenberg, she borrowed her screen name from a Tudor queen because it seemed more saleable.

Johnny Weissmuller, Tarzan to Maureen O'Sullivan's Jane in six MGM films, first won five Olympic golds in which sport?

Swimming brought him 67 world records before Hollywood called. He also won an Olympic bronze medal in water polo at the 1924 Paris Games.

In The Jetsons, homemaker Jane Jetson leaves the housekeeping at the Skypad Apartments to which robot maid?

Rosie handles the chores that the home's push-button gadgets do not. The Jetsons was Hanna-Barbera's Space Age counterpart to The Flintstones and the first programme ABC broadcast in colour.

Jane Wyman, who won an Oscar playing a deaf-mute woman in Johnny Belinda, was the first wife of which US president?

Ronald Reagan was still an actor when they married. In the 1980s, while he was in the White House, she played the villainous matriarch of the prime-time soap Falcon Crest.

In the 2005 film Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Angelina Jolie plays assassin Jane Smith opposite which actor as husband John?

Brad Pitt was cast first, opposite Nicole Kidman, who dropped out over a scheduling clash with The Stepford Wives. The bored married couple turn out to work for competing agencies.

Which Oscar winner for Black Swan plays Jane Foster, a nurse in the original comics, in Marvel's Thor films?

Natalie Portman first played her in Thor in 2011. In the comics Jane was later deemed worthy to wield the hammer Mjolnir, taking over as Thor when the hero no longer could.

Singer and actress Jane Birkin gave her name to a coveted leather handbag created in 1984 by which French fashion house?

Hermès chief Jean-Louis Dumas sat next to her on a flight when her straw basket spilled its contents. She sketched her ideal bag for him, and he had it made in supple black leather.

In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Bennet, the eldest of the Bennet sisters, accepts a proposal from which rich bachelor?

Mr Bingley rents the neighbouring Netherfield estate and takes to Jane early on. His friend Mr Darcy at first persuades him to leave, convinced that she is an unsuitable match.

In the 1962 thriller What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Bette Davis starred opposite which reputed real-life rival?

Joan Crawford had gone to director Robert Aldrich with the idea of starring alongside Davis. Rumours of feuding on set helped the film succeed, though both actresses later denied them.

Jane Krakowski, a Tony winner for the musical Nine, first found TV fame as Elaine Vassal in which legal comedy-drama?

Ally McBeal ran on Fox from 1997 to 2002. Krakowski went on to earn four Emmy nominations as Jenna Maroney in the NBC satire 30 Rock.

Jane Curtin fronted which Saturday Night Live segment from 1976, later paired with Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray?

Weekend Update made her newscaster a foil for John Belushi's rambling, out-of-control commentaries. She went on to win back-to-back Emmys for the 1980s sitcom Kate & Allie.

Jane Addams, the first American woman awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, co-founded which social settlement in 1889?

Hull House gave social services to poor, largely immigrant families in Chicago. Before opening it, Addams had visited Toynbee Hall in London, the world's first settlement house.

New Zealand director Jane Campion became the first woman to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes with which 1993 film?

The Piano follows a mute Scottish woman sent to New Zealand for an arranged marriage. Anna Paquin, picked from 5,000 girls to play her daughter, won an Oscar in her first major role.

Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean won ice dance gold at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics skating to which piece of music?

Boléro, by Maurice Ravel, earned the Nottingham pair twelve perfect 6.0s, including one for artistic impression from every judge. A public square in their home city is now named after it.

Jane Asher, the actress who later built a party cake business, was engaged in 1967 to which member of the Beatles?

Paul McCartney lived in her family's Wimpole Street townhouse for more than two years of their romance. She told the BBC in July 1968 that the engagement had been called off.

Perry Farrell created which touring music festival in 1991 as a farewell for his band Jane's Addiction?

Lollapalooza took its name from an antiquated word whose sound Farrell liked. In 2005 it was retooled from a travelling tour into an annual festival held in Chicago.

Which rocker's 1993 hit Mary Jane's Last Dance had a video starring Kim Basinger as a dead woman?

Tom Petty plays a morgue assistant who takes her home in the video, which won the MTV award for Best Male Video. The song was first released on a Greatest Hits album.

Which actress played Jane Tennison, one of London's first female Detective Chief Inspectors, in ITV's Prime Suspect?

Helen Mirren won three consecutive BAFTA television awards for the role, which she played from 1991 to 2006. Tennison spends the series confronting sexism inside the Metropolitan Police.

Jane Hawking's memoir of her marriage to physicist Stephen Hawking was adapted into which 2014 film?

The Theory of Everything stars Felicity Jones as Jane and won Eddie Redmayne the Best Actor Oscar as Stephen. Her 2007 memoir is called Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen.

In the landmark 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, Jane Roe was the pseudonym of which Texas plaintiff?

Norma McCorvey gave birth while the lawsuit was still under way and placed the baby for adoption. Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee were the attorneys who took her case.

Jane Jacobs, author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, fought which planner's plans for Greenwich Village?

Robert Moses wanted to overhaul her own neighbourhood. She also helped get the Lower Manhattan Expressway cancelled, and was arrested in 1968 for inciting a crowd at a hearing on it.

Jane Pauley, who succeeded Barbara Walters on NBC's Today at 25, married which cartoonist, the creator of Doonesbury?

Garry Trudeau's wife co-anchored Today from 1976 to 1989, first beside Tom Brokaw and then Bryant Gumbel. She later joined CBS Sunday Morning after viewers warmed to her as an interview subject.

Agatha Christie's amateur detective Miss Jane Marple lives in which fictional English village?

St Mary Mead is home to the elderly spinster, who first appeared in a 1927 magazine story. Her first full-length novel was The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930.

In P. L. Travers's Mary Poppins books, Jane Banks and her brother Michael live at Number 17 on which London street?

Cherry Tree Lane is where the east wind blows the magical nanny into the Banks household. Besides Jane and Michael, the books give the family baby twins, John and Barbara.

Jane Lane, an aspiring artist in suburban Lawndale, is the heroine's best friend in which MTV animated series?

Daria was spun off from Beavis and Butt-Head, where its smart, acerbic heroine had been a recurring character. She and Jane watch high school life with matching cynicism.

Sarah Jane Smith, a journalist played by Elisabeth Sladen, was a companion in which British science fiction series?

Doctor Who introduced her in 1973 beside Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor, and she stayed on when Tom Baker took over the lead. Sladen returned to the part in the 1981 spin-off pilot K-9 and Company.

Actor Thomas Jane, born Thomas Elliott III, played the title role in a 2004 film about which Marvel vigilante?

The Punisher was a part he says no other actor was asked to play. Jane was his mother's maiden name, and he later earned three Golden Globe nominations for the HBO series Hung.

In the Dick and Jane reading primers used in American classrooms, what is the name of the family's dog?

Spot shared the pages with Puff, the family cat, and a teddy bear named Tim. The primers taught American children to read from 1930 until the final version in 1965.

Mary Jane shoes, with a strap across the instep, are named after a character in which comic strip launched in 1902?

Buster Brown wore the style too, alongside the girl the shoe is named for. Cartoonist Richard Outcault drew her from his own daughter, and his characters became the mascots of the Brown Shoe Company.

The Jane's reference annuals are named after founder Fred T. Jane, who in 1898 began cataloguing the world's what?

Warships filled his first annual, All the World's Fighting Ships, which he illustrated with his own ink sketches. He had been drawing warships since his teens.

In 2021 Scottish-born Jane Fraser became the first woman to head a major US bank, as chief executive of which firm?

Citigroup hired her in 2004 after ten years at the consultancy McKinsey, where she had risen to partner. She was born in the Scottish university town of St Andrews.

Jane Smiley's Pulitzer-winning novel A Thousand Acres moves which Shakespeare tragedy to a family farm in Iowa?

King Lear becomes Larry Cook, an Iowa farmer with three daughters. The novel won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was adapted into a film of the same name in 1997.

Jane Wiedlin, Joan of Arc in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, co-founded which all-female band behind We Got the Beat?

The Go-Go's topped the Billboard album chart with their debut, a first for an all-female band writing its own songs and playing its own instruments. Wiedlin was the rhythm guitarist.

Jane Horrocks, star of the film Little Voice, played both Bubble and Katy Grin in which BBC sitcom?

Absolutely Fabulous kept her busy on and off from 1992 to 2016, including a film version. A playwright impressed by her mimicry wrote The Rise and Fall of Little Voice for her.

Jane Darwell won an Oscar as Ma Joad, the family matriarch, in the 1940 film of which John Steinbeck novel?

The Grapes of Wrath gave her the part at the insistence of its star, Henry Fonda. She appeared in more than 100 major films across half a century.

Jane Wyatt, the mother in Father Knows Best, also played Amanda Grayson, human mother of which Star Trek character?

Spock's mother first appeared in the 1967 episode Journey to Babel, and Wyatt returned to the role for the 1986 film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Her sitcom part won her three Emmys.

Sweet Jane, written by Lou Reed, first appeared on the 1970 album Loaded by which American rock band?

The Velvet Underground first released the song with its bridge cut out, and the missing section was restored only on later reissues. Reed kept playing it live after he left the band.

Lady Jane Franklin sponsored seven expeditions to find her husband John, lost while seeking which Arctic sea route?

The Northwest Passage search made his fate one of the most vexed questions of the decade. She refused to believe reports that his men had turned to cannibalism and scorned John Rae, who brought the news.

Jane Marcet's 1805 book Conversations on Chemistry was an early inspiration for which young scientist, born in 1791?

Michael Faraday went on to revolutionise physics and chemistry. Marcet's book, written especially for women readers, ran to 16 editions in England, and her last edition appeared when she was 84.