Jan Sterling, a sexy, sharp-witted blond actress who found a niche in Hollywood playing tough, scheming good-time girls in such classic films as Ace in the Hole and The High and the Mighty, died on March 26 from complications of a stroke in Woodland Hills, California. She was 82.

She was born Jane Sterling Adriance to a wealthy New York City family on April 3, 1921. She was just a toddler when she accompanied her mother to Europe after her parents divorced, and was educated by private tutors in London. She enrolled in Fay Compton's Drama School in England when she was just 15, and two years later, made her Broadway debut (as an English ingenue) in the play Bachelor Born. Jan spent the next ten years working diligently on her stage craft, and finally caught a break when she replaced Judy Holliday in the Chicago run of Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon's hit play Born Yesterday.

Her success on the stage created some interest in Hollywood. She had her first prominent film role as the protective wife of a man (Stephen McNally) who rapes a deaf mute (Jane Wyman) in Johnny Belinda (1948). She was fine opposite William Holden in the minor noir thriller Union Station; memorable as the ditzy inmate in the classic "women-behind-bars" melodrama Caged, (both 1950); and proved she had a flair for light comedy in Rhubarb, and The Mating Game (both 1951).

Still, despite this fine start, Sterling had yet to tap into her potential. She shined best when she played hardened tramps, displaying a sultry allure and knowing wit that her other noir contemporaries (i.e. Lizabeth Scott, Coleen Gray) lacked. In Billy Wilder's brilliant Ace in the Hole (aka The Big Carnival) (1951), she offered a blazing performance as Lorraine Minosa, a conniving, opportunistic wife of a cave-in victim, whose rescue is delayed by an immoral reporter (Kirk Douglas) so he can get full mileage out of the media coverage and notoriety. She added zing to such immortal lines as: "I don't go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons." Critics panned the film at the time of release for being such an uncompromising study in cynicism - and only in recent years has it been regarded as a tough and accurate study of media exploitation. But there can be no doubt that Sterling's Lorraine was an integral part of the movie and is fondly regarded as one of the cinema's great hard-boiled dames.

Jan was nominated for an Best Supporting Actress Oscar®, and won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Sally McKee, a woman of loose virtue in the skyborn drama The High and the Mighty (1954). After that, Sterling made a few more films like the cultish Women's Prison (1955); a sympathetic wife to Humphrey Bogart in the boxing expose The Harder They Fall(1956); and ended up in the campy melodrama High School Confidential! (1958). She was married to actor Paul Douglas, whom she met during her run in Born Yesterday. Sadly, their nine-year marriage ended when he died from heart attack in 1959, and Sterling went into semi-retirement shortly after his death.

In the '70s, Sterling did make a comeback of sorts on television where she was featured in such popular shows as: Hawaii Five-O, Kung Fu, Little House on the Prairie, and Three's Company; and she took a memorable turn as Mrs. Herbert Hoover in the miniseries Backstairs at the White House (1976). Her last film appearance was in First Monday in October (1981), with Walter Matthau and Jill Clayburgh. Tragically, her only child - a son (Adams) from her marriage with Douglas - died last December of heart failure. He was 48.

by Michael T. Toole