Jan Smithers Part 3

Update July 3, 1999 - Today is, believe it or not, Jan's 50th birthday. I'll bet she looks just as good as she did at 30. Care to send a picture, Jan?

Update July 14, 1999 - Well, this has been one hell of a couple of weeks. As soon as WKRP started playing on Nick on July 5, this page got red hot. I've had over 15,000 hits! There are a whole bunch of drooling Jan fans out there. Unfortunately, the crappy third party guestbook I was using got overwhelmed by the input (hundreds of them!) and managed to lose all the entries from February up thru July 9. For all you folks who wrote before then, I'm sorry - you may want to resubmit. I've set up my own guestbook starting yesterday - not as attractive as the previous one, but it won't lose entries. You can see the new guestbook here, submit an entry here, or see the little bit of Jan-related entries I managed to save here.

I've got to assume that Jan has by now either seen this site or at least heard of it. I hope she likes it.

Update August 9, 1999 - My guestbook continues to fill with the testimony of Jan lovers the world over. I seem to get a lot from Canada these days, since we found out that Jan lives outside Halifax. I've always wanted to see Nova Scotia, being of Scottish extraction. I may get up there one of these days.

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No doubt you have noticed that there has been a lot of fiddling with the episodes on Nick at Nite (or N@N, as most of you put it). The same clowns who are fighting the MP3 revolution have apparently forced the reediting of some of the episodes to remove the original hit songs and replace them with innocuous crap. A royalty issue, I presume. If I get to the Michael Pataki episode (see below) and find that "Tiny Dancer" has been removed, I will be pissed. Beware my wrath, Nick!

The animated gif here (boy, is this page getting slow!) is put together from some screen captures sent to me by Lenslover, the webmaster of Girls with Glasses. It was his feature on Jan that got me started on this page. Thanks, dude, and keep up the good work. There is something about glasses . . .

Update September 1, 1999: Hold my order, terrible dresser?!?!?! Good Lord, I can't believe it. Nick not only dumped "Tiny Dancer" from the Pataki episode, as I feared, but they even dubbed over the song lyric with the above absurdity. Are copyright and royalty laws that weird that they couldn't just play the damn episodes as they were originally aired?

I'm still getting over 2000 hits a week on this page. I keep hearing from more and more people in Nova Scotia. This page was mentioned one morning on Q104, the album rock station in Halifax -- the DJ is apparently a big JS fan and didn't know until he ran across this page that she lived in the same town. No word yet on some contemporary sightings of Jan, but we can always hope. Here's an old sighting, from the guestbook:

I had the pleasure of meeting Jan Smithers at O'Hare Airport one day, perhaps twenty years ago. She was with another woman, and was carrying a CBS flight bag...she was wearing a brown plaid skirt.. I approached her, introduced myself, told her I really enjoyed her work....she was very polite and walked away down the terminal...she was walking into the sun...and I nearly died. Why? No slip!!! Oh, dear, this woman's LEGS!!! I think Jan Smithers is the best looking woman I have ever met in my life. Period. Sweet, too.

Update September 6, 1999: Here's a note from J. M., who actually contacted Nick about the edits.

I suspected that N@N was editing WKRP. Naturally I was disappointed, but tolerated it in lieu of abstinence. However, upon the airing of "The Americanization of Ivan", I could take the abuse no more. I hit your site and found that you were incensed enough to update your page immediately!
The following is an exchange between Nick at Nite and myself. I cast aside my general dislike of television and had to call it art ( one has to take a stance if one is going to build an argument). I missed the part of the show where
Ivan quotes Tiny Dancer to Bailey, so I thought they were just dodging a possible homosexuality issue by chopping Les' final line. I have now come to realize that they must have hacked the first reference as well. Infidels.

I have edited my name out of the exchanges. Use what you like if you desire, with the caveat that you conceal my identity.

Regards,
J.M.
Tulsa, OK

Sent: Wednesday, September 1, 1999 7:50 PM
To: postmaster@tvland.com
Subject: WKRP in Cincinnati

Dear Nick at Nite:
It is really GREAT to see WKRP back on the air. Love the show! HATE your editing. WKRP was a prime time show so the material can't be that controversial 15 years later. Even sit-coms fall into the category of art. Most art galleries don't seem to be able to get away with showing only 95% of a painting and tacking a cheesy commercial ad over the other 5% with the excuse that they need to maintain market/revenue share or the spineless justification that their editing has no real affect on the overall impact of the images.

Your most flagrant demonstration of this vile practice to date was demonstrated during the airing of episode 39 (The Americanization of Ivan). Your editing Ivan's closing line from "Hold me closer tiny dancer" to "Hold my order terrible dresser" (or something equally insipid) was deplorable. The original line was humorous, well timed, well placed, tied
to an earlier delivery of the same line and brought a humorous closure to the episode. Your pathetic dubbing made no sense and left Les with a response that made no sense. I am beginning to wonder if your editing staff even recognized they had hacked out a reference to the lyrics of Elton John's "Tiny Dancer"?

Some of the shows you air on your station are the best of the best. Many people spent many hours polishing the scripts and the story lines.At this point, I do not think your editing staff has much to contribute. To the executive staff, thanks for airing the show. Now let us see the whole show. Have a little respect for the art that you use to make money.

J.M.
Tulsa, OK

-----Original Message-----
From: NickOnline, Postmaster Tvland [mailto:postmaster1@tvland.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 02, 1999 9:30 AM
Subject: RE: WKRP in Cincinnati

Here's what's up...the music used in WKRP (including the lyrics to Elton John's Tiny Dancer) has changed ownership many times since the 1970's. In addition to that, some of the music has changed ownership in the past 2 years. Bottom line, it is now very difficult to get the rights to the music
which originally aired as part of the WKRP we all know and love. And some of the songs are just not available to us at all.

As you already know, here at Nick at Nite & TV Land, we are committed to bringing you the best television we can. We think WKRP is far too good to pass up, even if we had to bring you a slightly altered version.

Thanks for you comments and & concern,
The Doctor is in,
Postmaster Steve
Nick at Nite & TV Land Online

----------
Sent: Thursday, September 2, 1999 7:55 PM
To: 'NickOnline, Postmaster Tvland'
Subject: RE: WKRP in Cincinnati

Postmaster Steve:
Thank you for your prompt response. I am surprised that the music in the show is not grandfathered under original ASCAP, etc. contracts, but it is you who are in the businesss, not me.
Music, aside, you failed to explain the editing of lines and chopping of segments. Please do so. May I suggest that you first visit then review the guest log at the bottom of the page to see Nick praised for running WKRP but kicked about unmercifully for editing. There is a small army of "Jan Fan's" out there. Your treatment of The Americanization of Ivan is quite the topic.
The Jan Fan's are surprisingly consistant in their adoration and seem to want anything surrounding their "Tiny Dancer" to remain unmolested.

Regards,
J.M.

-----Original Message-----

Actually I did address the dialogue change. The LYRICS are part of the song. Without having the rights to the song, using the lyrics would still be impossible - it also wouldn't make any sense. The licensing issue is a very complicated one. I can only reiterate we are sorry about the need to do this
AND, it is better to have the show, if altered slightly, than to not have it at all.

Postmaster Steve,
Nick at Nite & TV Land Online

Update: November 27, 1999 -- It's been a while since an update. Nick at Nite cancelled it's reruns of WKRP, citing low ratings.
Here's some recent quotes from the guestbook:

Just found your site...awesome!!! I too had heard Jan was living in the Halifax area. When she was married to Brolin, they bought a summer home near the Alexander Graham Bell estate on the Bras d'or lakes in Cape Breton, N.S.. Don't no who got that in the divorce.

I agree that Jan Smithers lives some where in the Maritimes because her son plays bantam hockey and played against my friends sons team while she was watching. I remember this because he said she got up for a Tim Hortons Coffee and she had a great tush.

I don't know what Jan is like but I can tell she does reside in Nova Scotia, Canada and I did see her four or five times with a little girl (age approx 10 with long dark hair) while I was in a bank. She looked pretty damn beautiful to me. To the person who said Jan's not in Canada either your really wrong or she has a twin sister.

Hiya! Jan was my favorite on WKRP, too. For the past 2 Thanksgivings I've had dinner with Gary Sandy in Kettering, Ohio. He grew up in Kettering & dated my step-mother-in-law's daughter when they went to high school together. They still are good friends. Gary is "forgotten" by the producers in L.A. & does a lot of live theater traveling about. He is one nice guy. His only complaint (other than being forgotten by L.A.) is each cast member only gets something like $27 per episode when WKRP is re-run. - Ken Katowik (WYSO in Yellow Springs)

First let me say love the page, love Jan/Bailey. I noticed you did not mention that she appeared on an episode of Starsky & Hutch. She played former girlfriend of Starsky's and she had a drug problem that he tried to cope with alone. It was an unusual episode in that it centered mostly on Starsky (the dark haired one) and Jan. Keep up the good work, jegar.

hi there was just recently a wkrp reunion cruise here in new york city. i had a great time going gary sandy frank bonner richard sanders and howard hessman all attended i asked the about jan they all said they have not heard from her and wondered where she lives and what ever happened to her. i was able a get cast photo signed by all four of them i was wondering if you have a mailing address on jan and if she replies to her fan mail. and if she still acts in theater at all thanks

Update: December 12, 1999 -- Here's a cool note:

Hello!
I really enjoy your page on the actress Jan Smithers. As a local who was cast in the movie "Where The Lilies Bloom", I still hold fond memories of Jan. I'm the kid in the movie who is reading his essay on "My Summer Vacation-Riding A Motorcycle" in the scene where the character Mary Call is waiting to read her essay. I still remember meeting Jan for the first time, and really liking her. She was very energetic, and she truly loved filming in the North Carolina mountains. She was also very soft-hearted. During the filming where her character Devola is at her fathers grave site, the directors had to keep re-shooting that scene, because Jan would start crying and couldn't stop. She later on confessed that doing that scene was so dramatic. After she would cry, she would go ahead and do the scene.
I will always remember Jan as being a friend, a person who would always been in the hearts of her fans. I still remember the article in a parenting magazine that says that she still loves James very much, but can't compete with what he really wants. Oh well, that is James' lost, not Jan's. I hope that she is doing well.

I will go to my parents home and pull out some of the photos that were taking of Jan while filming here. As an adult, I still think of this actress who was so shy, yet always putting her fans first. It was great seeing her in other movies and the popular WKRP.

Again: Your page is great. Keep up the good work.

-Chris

Update: February 19, 2000 - A dedicated Jan fan has done me the great service of providing a copy of an article about Jan, which appeared in the May 3, 1980 issue of TV Guide. Here it is:

“I Felt Ugly”

Jan Smithers barely survived some horrible traumas before getting her break on “WKRP”

By Glen Esterly

She was just 16 and she sat there astride a motorcycle, sun-dappled and blue-eyed, sweatered and jeaned, looking like the perfect California golden girl, smack-dab on the cover of Newsweek. It was 1966, a time when newsmagazines feverishly sought to get a handle on youth trends, so Newsweek surveyed “what American teen-agers are really like,” and the teen-ager picked to go on the cover was Jan Smithers.

                Inside, the story reported that Jan “orbits between the worlds of the Surf and the Strip. At Malibu Beach she and the other bikini-clad golden girls take their place in the sun…”

                “Actually,” Jan says now, “I hardly ever got to the beach, I’d never been on a motorcycle before, and my mother made me be home by 9:30 when I went out at night.”

                And her life was not all that golden, especially for a girl who was tuning-fork sensitive. Two years before the Newsweek experience, her treasured family life had been disrupted when her parents were divorced and Jan and her three sisters were scattered between their parents’ homes. Shortly after the divorce, swerving her car to avoid a car that ran a stop sign, Jan had hit a telephone pole smashing her face into the steering wheel. She vividly remembers a nurse in the hospital emergency room gazing at her and commenting: “Oh, too bad-she used to be such a pretty girl.” Jan was left with a permanent, prominent scar across her chin.

                “The scar was just one more thing to make me feel unattractive,” she recalls. “I felt ugly, and I had very little self-esteem to begin with-somewhere along the line I had become very introverted. Suddenly, I was not only terribly shy but, by people’s usual standards, physically ruined. I came to accept the idea that negative things were going to happen to me.”

                More did. One of her sisters was killed in a car wreck, then her mother died. Feeling adrift and alone--she’d never been able to communicate with her lawyer father--Jan was on the verge of buckling. In the midst of the setbacks, however, she took two positive steps. “First I accepted some TV commercials offered as a result of the Newsweek cover. I’d get so nervous, I’d turn bright red and break out in a rash, but I forced myself to do them. It was a challenge I knew I had to tackle or I’d never break out of my shell. Also, I was studying at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles. Art was my way at that time of really trying to communicate with people.”

                At 19 she decided to try to communicate in a way that would reach a larger audience than she ever could in art, by becoming an honest-to-goodness actress. Along the way she lost some jobs because of her scar. (On TV it can be hidden with makeup; In movies it often shows in closeups; In person she doesn’t try to cover it.) But she hung in, studying acting, doing more commercials and getting some film credits (“Where the Lilies Bloom,” “Our Winning Season”). Then, in 1978, she auditioned for the part of Bailey Quarters, an assistant at a radio station in CBS’s new series WKRP In Cincinnati. Creator and executive producer Hugh Wilson was patterning the role loosely after his own wife, whom he describes as “very shy but very smart--the sort of person people tend to dismiss as a jerk, till they find out she’s got so much to offer. Well, other actresses read better for the part, but they were playing shy. Jan was shy.”

                On the set of WKRP, with rehearsals in progress, Hugh Wilson gets downright evangelical on the subject of Smithers, spiriting a reporter off to the side to confide, native Georgian accent still twanging, “Listen, I don’t normally bother to talk to the press, but this is more important to me than the usual stuff about Gary [Sandy] or Howard [Hesseman] or the others--Jan was almost terminated last season. It was that close.

                “People say to me now, ‘Hey, I like Bailey, how come she wasn’t on in the first season?’ Of course, she was, but she was virtually invisible for a long time. Jan didn’t have any volume, for one thing; half the time the studio audience couldn’t even hear her. It all seemed like an ordeal for her. So Jan and I had it out and ultimately she told me, ‘I’m going to make this work.’ Then she sucked in her guts and did it. She’s got a lot of guts, that woman.”

                Jan herself notes, “Initially, I didn’t have the comedy and TV experience of the other regulars; I was intimidated and almost wanted to get canned. Finally, I learned the technical part of it, the timing and rhythm you need to do a situation comedy. I took matters in my own hands and decided that Bailey, while very insecure and totally unlike Jennifer [Loni Anderson] because she’s not together and not naturally outgoing, did have a lot of ambition and the capacity to grow. I think lots of people can relate to that and root for Bailey. That’s the kind of mail I get-people say, ‘I’m trying to gain more freedom, too.’”

                There’s that, but there are also those men who find that Bailey--with her hunched shoulders, her hair up, her oversized glasses and her prim attire--is the really sexy woman on the show, notwithstanding the palpitating presence of blond bombshell Jennifer. “We’re fortunate,” observes Gordon Jump (Carlson), “to have two women of the vastly different appeals of Loni and Jan. Men look at Loni’s character in an animal-type way; they look at Jan’s in a more reverent woman-on-a-pedestal way.”

                When the reporter relates a series of admiring male comments about her sex appeal, Jan grins and says, “Oh, God, that’s wonderful!” On second thought, hesitantly, “I guess . . . you know, I’m always asked what it’s like being the ‘other girl’ on the series, whether there isn’t competition with Loni. Honestly, Loni and I have always helped each other. The only problem is that there are eight regulars in the ensemble, so if you do 24 shows a season and try to feature everyone equally, that’s only three big shows a year for each character.”

From her perspective, Loni Anderson asserts, a little impatiently: “Who says there can’t be more than one very attractive woman on a show without it becoming Charlie’s Angels?” Jan, she continues, “is a totally different person from when she started on the show, much more secure, while retaining a lovely elusive quality--something very delicate and fragile. It’s funny: I’ve been told some crew members don’t like me. They think I really am like Jennifer, which is intimidating to a lot of men--that kind of striking, overwhelming woman. But men who won’t go near me will walk right up to Jan, like she’s a waif and needs someone to take care of her.”

                In the hillside house she owns near the CBS stages in Studio City, Jan stops in midsentence while talking about her personal problems to say, “I hope I don’t sound self-pitying; I hate self-pity.” Pause. Long breath. “I was just sitting here, trying to feel if there’s any pain left about the scar.” She puts a hand on her stomach. “I used to feel the pain strongly here . . . No, it doesn’t hurt in my stomach any more. I think I’m past that.

                “During the last couple of years I’ve had several operations to cut out scar tissue and make the scar less noticeable. I couldn’t afford that before. I’ll have another operation this year that will smooth it out more, so it’s less obvious for film. I’d prefer to avoid losing any more roles because of the scar. But I know it’ll never be gone completely.” [The scar notwithstanding, she has a starring role in “The Love Tapes,” an ABC TV-movie scheduled for this week.-Ed.]

In groping for remedies for her problems over the years, Jan says she was influenced by several religions she’s studied. “A Hindu teacher helped me learn about enlightenment, which simply means lightening your emotional load and letting go. That sounds so simple it sounds dumb, but it’s hard to achieve.” Laughing, she adds: “I used to have to try to fix everything and everybody. Like, with boy friends, I was clutching. I tried to control and make the relationship happen. Now I find that they try to do that with me.”

                She does try to make things happen when it comes to influencing opinions on social issues, concentrating lately on campaigning against nuclear power. “I’ve always been very sensitive to world problems and political matters--I remember at the age of 5, in the mid-‘50s, becoming terrified of The Bomb. My mother told me once that’s when I became introverted; I decided the world couldn’t be trusted.”

                Recently, Jan sat all of her WKRP colleagues down and made them watch two films on the dangers of nuclear power. That’s the sort of initiative Bailey Quarters would have been much too bashful to undertake with her radio-station cohorts not long ago. But, like Jan, Bailey is branching out.

Cool!