Cowl, Jane

Cowl, Jane (1884–1950), American actress and playwright, who made her first appearance on the stage under Belasco in his Sweet Kitty Bellairs (1903). She subsequently played in a number of his productions, including his own A Grand Army Man (1907). Her finest part was probably Juliet, which she first played in 1923, but she was also seen as Cleopatra in 1924 and Viola in 1930. She was also much admired in revivals of the younger Dumas's The Lady of the Camellias, as Camille (1931), and of Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1940) and Candida (1942). Among new plays in which she appeared were Coward's Easy Virtue (1925; London, 1926), Robert Sherwood's The Road to Rome (1927), Thornton Wilder's The Merchant of Yonkers (1938), and Van Druten's Old Acquaintance (1940). She appeared also in her own plays Lilac Time (1917), written in collaboration, Information, Please (1918), and Smilin' Through (1919). Hervey House, also written in collaboration, was produced in London in 1935, directed by Tyrone Guthrie.