Singer on Broadway, radio and television. Jane Pickens was a popular Broadway singer and later a prominent Newport and New York City hostess, philanthropist and political candidate for The New York House of Representatives. Wife of William C. Langley and later Walter Hoving, who owned Tiffany & Co. in New York. Coming from a very musical family, she was raised in Atlanta. She appeared in hundreds of movies, including 'Regina' and 'Boys and Girls Together'. She also starred in a 15-minute ABC television musical series called 'The Jane Pickens Show', which was replaced by 'The Martha Wright Show'. When her acting and singing career ended, she became a leading socialite and fundraiser. When she married the Walter Hoving, then owner of Tiffany & Co., she moved with him to Newport, Rhode Island and began her long stay in Newport. At her 35-room cottage, 'Mer-Illton', she hosted Newport's grandest art exhibits. Rugs were covered across the back lawn and large tents were set up, each one containing displays of her artwork, all of which were going to charity. Later she sold 'Mer-Illton' to her daughter and purchased nearby 'Bellevue House', a grand manor house estate with lush gardens and buildings designed by Ogden Codman Jr. She teamed up with her good friend Mrs. Cynthia Cary, of next-door 'Elm Court', to host the annual Bellevue Avenue Art Show, held at the 'Breakers'. An active preservationist and member of the Preservation Society of Newport, she worked to save the Zion Episcopal Church building, which she reincarnated into the 'Jane Pickens Theater'. In New York City, she became a prominent political hostess at her large townhouse on Park Avenue in Manhattan, which encompassed a ballroom and top-floor art gallery. In 1972 she decided to run as New York's Republican/Conservative candidate for the U.S House of Representatives, going against the incumbent Edward Koch (D). Among her endorsers were Nelson Rockefeller and Helen Hull. Though she lost the fight, she was still extremely active in politics, often hosting campaign fundraisers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She died in her eighty-third year at 'Bellevue House' of an illness, while painting in her garden. Her Newport home was sold and so was her artwork, with the sale profits going to renovate the 'Jane Pickens Theater'. The kind and sweet woman was memorialized when her daughter donated the remains of her painting collection to the theater, turning it into the 'Jane Pickens Theater and Art Museum'.

Bio by: Bobby Kelley