One of the most versatile actresses, Janice Rule was born in Norwood, Ohio, on August 15, 1931. Janice made her screen debut in the star-studded movie La flamme du passé (1951). She played the rival for James Stewart's affections, and was driven away by witch Kim Novak, in L'adorable voisine (1958), a pre-Ma sorcière bien aimée (1964) comedy. Janice appeared in the first season of the ground-breaking science fiction series La quatrième dimension (1959) playing "Helen Foley" (named after Rod Serling's favorite teacher). In 1961, Janice married Ben Gazzara and they had one daughter, Elizabeth Gazzara (they divorced in 1979). After marrying, Janice took off a few years from movie acting, then returned to the silver screen and gave her best performances. In a change of pace role, she was the party girl in La poursuite impitoyable (1966); and Janice showed a real flair for comedy as "Matt Helm"'s partner in Matt Helm traqué (1967) with Dean Martin. She did a wonderful job realistically portraying a frontier woman in Welcome to Hard Times (1967), and received acclaim for her performance as a disturbed artist in Trois femmes (1977). The last movie Janice appeared in was Le prix de l'exploit (1985), and her last TV appearance was in the science fiction genre, Ray Bradbury présente (1985) in 1992. From science fiction, to comedy, to portraying loose women, to playing strong women - Janice Rule covered the whole spectrum of human emotion and life.
