A much-lauded stage performer whose relatively few screen appearances have yielded four Oscar nominations, Jane Alexander first caught the attention of moviegoers reprising her Tony-winning stage role as the white mistress of black boxer Jack Johnson (James Earl Jones) in "The Great White Hope" (1970). For her film debut, the reed-thin, angular-featured actress was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award.
Often cast as forthright, plain-Jane characters, Alexander (nee Jane Quigley) is noted for the seemingly effortless simplicity and unmannered honesty of her work. The daughter of a prominent Boston-area surgeon, she spent much of her early career alternating between odd jobs (secretary, waitress) and stage work. By 1965, the now married actress joined the Arena Stage in Washington, DC where she spent three years honing her craft. Alexander made her Broadway debut in 1968 in "The Great White Hope" and went on to appear in a variety of venues in everything from Shakespeare and Ibsen to contemporary comedies and dramas and acting opposite leading men ranging from Michael Moriarty to Henry Fonda to Nigel Hawthorne. Over her long career, Alexander earned five additional Tony nominations for her roles as a woman searching for the right apartment in the comedy "6 Rms Riv Vu" (1973), the wife of a bisexual in "Find Your Way Home" (1974), the first woman justice on the US Supreme Court in "First Monday in October" (1979), the world's wealthiest woman bent on revenge in "The Visit" (1992) and as a banker living in London, the eldest of "The Sisters Rosensweig" (1993).
Although always dependable and sympathetic in features, Alexander excelled in the supporting roles of a mousy accountant with useful knowledge for reporters Woodward and Bernstein in "All the President's Men" (1977) and as the caring neighbor who assists Dustin Hoffman in adjusting to single fatherhood in "Kramer vs. Kramer" (1979), both of which earned her Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominations. She was exceptional as the mother in the understated, but harrowing, nuclear holocaust drama "Testament" (1983), which netted her a second Best Actress Academy Award nomination. Subsequently, Alexander gave a bravura performance yet seemed physically wrong playing a morally loose and ambivalent mother in "Square Dance" (1987), which she also developed and co-executive produced. One of last screen roles to date was as Matthew Broderick's very proper Bostonian mother in the Civil War drama "Glory" (1989).
The small screen has afforded the actress a larger arena in which to display her considerable talents. While she had begun appearing on TV in the late 60s, her work became more frequent from the early 70s, after her stage and screen success. Among her more noteworthy performances were as the mother of a cancer-stricken youth (Robby Benson) in "Death Be Not Proud" (ABC, 1975), as a volunteer at a school for emotionally disturbed youth in "A Circle of Children" (CBS, 1977) and its sequel "Lovey: A Circle of Children Part II" (CBS, 1978). Alexander received widespread acclaim and earned Emmy nominations for her affecting portrayal of Eleanor Roosevelt to Edward Herrmann's FDR in both "Eleanor and Franklin" (ABC, 1976) and "Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years" (ABC, 1977). She finally won her Emmy as Best Supporting Actress playing the leader of an all-female orchestra in Auschwitz in the superb "Playing for Time" (CBS, 1980), opposite Vanessa Redgrave. Alexander produced and starred in two biographical movies, "Calamity Jane" (CBS, 1984) and "A Marriage: Georgia O'Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz" (PBS, 1991) and she shone as another real-life figure in a deliciously spirited portrayal of gossip queen Hedda Hopper to Elizabeth Taylor's Louella Parsons in "Malice in Wonderland" (CBS, 1985).
In 1993, Alexander accepted President Bill Clinton's nomination to head the National Endowment for the Arts and was sworn into the post on October 8. Since that time, she has engaged in the annual battles with conservative congress members who seek to dissolve the NEA. Despite her best efforts, the NEA budget has been cut by over 40 percent since fiscal 1995. After four fractious years, Alexander tendered her resignation from the NEA in October 1997. After an interim period, during which her successor was named, the actress resumed her show business career.
The actress returned to the Broadway stage in "Honour" (1998), a rather pallid and verbose play about a man who leaves his wife (Alexander) for a younger woman. Perhaps in part to welcome her back and undoubtedly because she took a rather cliched role and imbued it with dignity and grace, she received her sixth Tony Award nomination. Nevertheless, the play failed to attract an audience and closed after a brief run. Alexander resumed her film career with the supporting role of Nurse Edna, one of the two women aiding in the operation of an orphanage, in the film adaptation of John Irving's "The Cider House Rules" (1999). While the actress did what she could with the part, lending strength and warmth to the role, it barely tapped her abilities, leaving audiences hungry for more of the powerful characterizations with which she had graced them in her long and distinguished career.
After appearances in writer-director John Sayles' "Sunshine State" (2002) and the hit horror film "The Ring" (2002) and various telpics, Alexander's next major acting turn was on the small screen, this time for another project chronicling the early lives of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: the acclaimed HBO telepic "Warm Springs" (2005), for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for her portrayal of the polio-stricken future president's hard-hearted mother Sara Delano Roosevelt.