Jane Novak

Jane Novak was born Johana B. Novak in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father, Joseph, was an immigrant from Bohemia. He died when she was a child leaving her mother with five children to raise. An aunt took her to California where she began acting in motion pictures in 1913. It is believed she appeared in a movie on her very first day in southern California. Her entrance into motion pictures came as a result of meeting leading man Frank Newburg whom she married in 1915. They had one daughter and divorced in 1918. During her career, she played with such stars as Wallace Beery, Tom Mix, Hobart Bosworth, Alan Hale, Thomas Moore, and Lewis Stone. She made five films with Wiliam S. Hart and was reported to be engaged to marry him at one time, but the marriage never took place. engaged to marry Western star William S. Hart, although their marriage never took place. Although she never truly reached the top rank of silent stars, by 1922 she had her own company and was making $1,500 per week. She is credited with over 90 shorts and features between 1913 and 1929 with her final starring role opposite Richard Dix in the Technicolor production Redskin (1929). During the 1930's, 1940's and 1950's, she only appeared in 14 more pictures, all in secondary roles. In 1974, she published a cookbook entitled Treasury of Chicken Cooking. The volume is a collection of 300 recipes compiled by Novak over the years, all of them her own. Her last appearance on camera was in 1988 for Kevin Brownlow's documentary "Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius." Her sister, Eva, was also a very successful silent movie star. Novak died in Woodland Hills, California of a stroke in 1990 at the age of 94.

Selected films of this star available for viewing:

Wagon Tracks (1919)

Three Word Brand (1921)

The Barbarian (1921)

Lazybones (1925)

The Walloping Kid (1926)

Redskin (1929)

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