Jane Novak (1886-1990)
Autographed original photo (silver-print) 6.5x8.5 inch stamped to reverse " Chester Bennett Productions, presenting, Jane Novak ,....in... "Thelma". Maria Corelli"
A soulful, fragile-looking blonde, Jane Novak's career supposedly began when a director saw her teenage photo on the makeup table of her aunt, film star Anne Schafer. From 1913, Jane started to appear in short films, eventually co-starring with the best Hollywood had to offer -- William S. Hart, Tom Mix, Harold Lloyd, Buck Jones and Richard Dix, among many others. At one point she was Hart's fiancée after divorcing actor Frank Newburg, but it ended. Younger sister Eva Novak would quickly follow in Jane's acting footsteps, both of their careers playing out until the advent of sound. Jane made a fortune in the late 20s in real estate and film production, but lost it all after the 1929 stock market crash. She returned occasionally to tiny acting roles in the late 30s and could be glimpsed from time to time for the next couple of decades. Died in her 90s of a stroke.
The older and more successful of the two Novak sisters (Eva Novak also appeared in films), Jane Novak became known as the strong outdoorsy type and was often cast in Northwest melodramas. A niece, by marriage, of actress Anne Seymour, Novak was awarded a contract by the Kalem company in 1913, mainly because she resembled "a blonde Alice Joyce." Earning ten dollars a week for her services, Novak appeared in a couple of rough-and-tumble one-reelers before switching to the more prominent Vitagraph company, where she was awarded a well-deserved raise and starring roles opposite the likes of Jack Mower, William Duncan, and Western favorite Myrtle Gonzales.
She did several comedies} for novice producer Hal Roach opposite a very young Harold Lloyd (Willie's Haircut) [1914 [1915], etc.) and cowboy actor Roy Stewart, but became a star opposite William S. Hart in five top-notch Westerns between 1918 and 1921. Persistent rumors teamed the two in private life as well and Novak divorced her husband, actor Frank Newburg. Hart, however, married another of his leading ladies, Winifred Westover, and the association with Novak came to an abrupt halt.
Now firmly established as a Western} heroine, Novack also appeared opposite Tom Mix (The Coming of the Law [1919 (the still extant The Barbarian} [1920 [1920], The Snowshoe Trail} [1922 [1925]). She scored a personal triumph in the society melodrama} Thelma (1922) as a Norwegian peasant girl falling for a British aristocrat and earned equally fine reviews for The Lullaby (1925) as a wrongly convicted girl whose child is taken from her in prison. Making three films in the U.K. in 1925, she met future director Alfred Hitchock, who became a lifelong friend (she would later play a small role in his second Hollywood film Foreign Correspondent [1940.
From 1936, Novak was among scores of former silent stars offered bit parts and extra work in major studio films and she would pop up in many (mostly) unbilled bit roles through at least 1954. In 1989, she was one of the celebrities interviewed for the documentary Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius. She died of a stroke at the Motion Picture Country Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA, less than a year later.
Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide.
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