Celebrity Health: Jane Seymour

The TV icon reveals how ballet, back injuries and angels have shaped her life

By Lisa Iannucci
CTW Features

At almost 60 years old, Jane Seymour is still as stunningly beautiful as she was when she began her illustrious film career and had her breakout role as the Bond girl in the 1973 film "Live and Let Die." Born the daughter of an obstetrician, you might think that the benefits of good nutrition and exercise were instilled in her when she was a little girl.

"I was also the daughter of a survivor of a Japanese concentration camp in World War II," she explains. "My mom wanted to make up for that and cooked mainly Indonesian food, and it was good food, but it was the worst for you." Her mom and her dad suffered from weight issues and her grandmother had diabetes. As a youngster raised in the Wimbledon district of London, Seymour regularly dined on cheese, fried foods and fried rice, and said that she didn't realize until she moved out that food wasn't supposed to be covered in salt.

Enrolled in ballet at an early age to help her flat feet and speech impediment, Seymour was just 13 when she made her professional debut with the London Festival Ballet. "I took it seriously," she says. "I knew now that certain foods were healthy and some weren't, and I was always careful. I was too thin for just a few minutes but saw girls in my class die from anorexia, and I didn't want to be like that."

Unfortunately, Seymour was encouraged to give up ballet because of her bad knees, but fortunately for us, she turned to a career in acting. She's had many roles throughout her career, but her most notable were as Cathy/Kate Ames in the "East of Eden" miniseries, Elise McKenna in the movie "Somewhere in Time" with Christopher Reeve, and Dr. Michaela "Mike" Quinn in the TV series "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," in the 1990s. (She quips, "You never saw Dr. Quinn jump from a carriage because of my knees. There was always a guy around to help her."). She also had a memorable role in the 2005 comedy "Wedding Crashers."

After the birth of her now 16-year old twins and a hard sneeze in the wrong direction, Seymour's career was almost halted with a debilitating back injury. "I herniated a disk in my back and never experienced that kind of pain before," she says. "I was lying on the floor and couldn't move."

She had emergency back surgery the next day and took her rehab very seriously. "I realized that what goes wrong with your spine is the direct result to how weak or strong your stomach muscles are," she says. Since then she swears by stomach crunches and an exercise where you suck in your stomach muscles as far as you can and put your arms in a circle in front of you as if you're hugging a tree. She doesn't work out regularly, but when she does she does Pilates and Gyrotonics.

A few years ago, Seymour was approached several times to become a cast member on the hit show "Dancing with the Stars," but she was concerned that her back wouldn't allow her to dance. "I hadn't danced a step in 40 years," she says. She met with DWTS pro Tony Dovolani, who promised her that he could get her to dance without injury. The two met with Seymour's physiotherapist, and after training she never needed to return to therapy. She finished the competition in sixth place.

"I did pull a muscle in between my ribs during dancing, which was painful, but overall I loved every single minute of doing that show," she says. "It was one of the highlights of my life. I was able to turn the clock back and with hard work, no surgery and passion. I did something that was very challenging to do and very satisfying to the 5-year-old in me who had flat feet."

Today, Seymour is just as busy as ever with her painting, jewelry, skincare line, film work and her newest book, "Among Angels" which provides her thoughts about angels, as well as quotes from literature, spiritual texts, and personal stories that honor the importance of the angels among us. Her mother, Mieke Frankenberg, died from complications related to a stroke, and Seymour says that her mom communicates with her through single white feathers that randomly show up where they wouldn't typically be.

"When you go through something, you have to open your heart if you want to receive the messages," she says. "I got that from my mother, that stuff happens in life, and if you open your heart by reaching out and helping someone else's, it will help you in return. It takes the pressure off your own grief, and you feel able to do something and that you have a sense of purpose."

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