RIP Jane Adams

Actress Jane Adams, who was a leading lady in westerns and horror films in the 1940s, died in Bellingham, Washington, on May 21, 2014. She was born Betty Jane Bierce in San Antonio, Texas, on August 7, 1918. She turned down a scholarship to Juilliard to train at the Pasadena Playhouse. She was soon performing on the Lux Radio Theatre and working with the Harry Conover Modeling Agency. She made her film debut in the 1942 short "So You Want to Give Up Smoking". She was billed as Poni Adams for early film roles, including "Salome Where She Danced" (1945), "Trail to Vengeance" (1945), "Code of the Lawless" (1945), "Lady on a Train" (1945), and "This Love of Ours" (1945). She was best known for her role as Nina the hunchbacked nurse in the 1945 Universal horror classic "House of Dracula" with John Carradine as Count Dracula, Lon Chaney, Jr. as the Wolf Man, Glenn Strange as Frankenstein's Monster, and Onslow Stevens as the mad scientist. She co-starred with Kirby Grant in several westerns, including "Lawless Breed" (1946), "Gunman's Code" (1946), and "Rustler's Round-Up" (1946). She was also seen in "Smooth as Silk" (1946), the serial "Lost City of the Jungle" (1946), "Night in Paradise" (1946), "The Runaround" (1946), "The Brute Man" (1946) with Rondo Hatton, "He Walked By Night" (1948), "Tarzan's Magic Fountain" (1949), "Gun Law Justice" (1949) with Jimmy Wakely, "Angels in Disguise" (1949), "Master Minds" (1949) opposite the Bowery Boys, the Cisco Kid western "The Girl From San Lorenzo" (1950), and "Street Bandits" (1951). She starred as Vicki Vale in the 1949 serial "Batman and Robin" opposite Robert Lowery as the Caped Crusader. She co-starred with western hero Johnny Mack Brown in "Western Renegades" (1949), "Law of the Panhandles" (1950), and "Outlaw Gold" (1950). She was featured in episodes of several television series in the 1950s, including "The Cisco Kid", "Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok", "Dangerous Assignment", "The Adventures of Kit Carson", and "Superman". She largely retired from the screen in the early 1950s. Adams was married to a U.S. Navy pilot who died during World War II. She married Thomas K. Turnage in 1945, who became a Major General and earned the Distinguished Service Medal and a Bronze Star during the Korean War. Turnage also served as administrator of the Veterans Administration under Ronald Reagan from 1986 until it became a cabinet position in 1989. Adams was widowed in 2000 and is survived by their two children.