Jane Seymour is one of Hollywood’s classiest actresses, and recently, she recalled how being part of “Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman” changed her life.
In early 1992, Seymour was going through a messy divorce and was having financial troubles when along came an offer to star in a 19th-century western.
“I was at the bottom of the barrel, and this [script] was just a piece of magic,” she recalls. “I thought, ‘If it has that effect on me, maybe it will on an audience.’”
Before Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman aired, Saturday night was where television shows went to die. The show was a huge success running six seasons and changed how networks schedule shows.
To the surprise of the critics, the show became a hit rising to the Top 20 during its first season.
As the show rose in popularity, viewers often showed up to watch the filming at California’s Paramount Ranch and in Malibu Creek State Park.
“Anyone who wanted to could come out — and did,” Seymour says. “All night sometimes! It was like doing live theater.”
The former Bond girl discussed her chemistry with co-star Joe Lando, who played Byron Sully, Dr. Quinn’s love interest and eventually real-life husband.
“If I pose in a photograph with Joe Lando, it burns the ether!” she jokes.
During production, Seymour acknowledged she fell for “Joe” hard.
Seymour has added that she loved the series and it changed her direction in life.
Recently, Seymour has made a splash starring in the new series Harry Wild. The series is about a retired English professor who “annoys her detective son (Kevin Ryan) by using her literary expertise to solve his murder cases. She’s a woman of a certain age — about my age — doing what some think a man’s job. And when she wants a man, she just takes him and then disposes him — she doesn’t need him anymore. She sort of calls all the shots.”
