Baby Jane Holzer

Biography

Filmography

Biography

Jane Holzer, most often referred to Baby Jane Holzer, was the very first of Andy Warhol's superstars. However, while this collection of New York's beautiful people were meant to illustrate Warhol's dictum that "in the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes" if Andy simply hung out with them for a while, Holzer would prove to be the exception: she established a varied, successful career long after her 15 minutes were supposed to have run out. After her time as a 1960s "it girl," Holzer made her own fortune buying and renovating property in New York and Florida. She also became known as a serious art collector and later as a successful film producer on films such as "Kiss of the Spider Woman" (1985) and "Spring Breakers" (2013).

Baby Jane Holzer was born Jane Brookenfeld in Palm Beach, FL on October 23, 1940, the daughter of real estate investor Carl Brookenfeld. She became Jane Holzer in 1962 when she married real estate heir Leonard Holzer, and was nicknamed "Baby Jane" by society columnist Carol Bjorkman that same year, a nod to the then-new Joan Crawford and Bette Davis thriller "What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?" that quickly stuck. A trip to London in 1963 saw her photographed by David Bailey for British Vogue, and while she was there, a shopping expedition to Carnaby Street subsequently saw the Park Avenue socialite introduce the new mod London fashions to Manhattan for the first time.

Holzer's good looks and stunning blonde hair -- which Tom Wolfe described as "an incredible mane, a vast tawny corona," in his 1964 essay about her, "Girl of The Year" -- caused Andy Warhol to stop her in the street outside Bloomingdale's and ask if she wanted to be a movie star. She replied "Sure - anything beats being a Park Avenue housewife," and went on to star in Warhol's short films "Couch" (1964) and "Batman Dracula" (1964). By general acclaim the most beautiful of Warhol's beautiful people, Holzer became the toast of bohemian Manhattan, and remained one of the era's most vividly-remembered icons.

In 1972, Holzer appeared alongside fellow former Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick in the film "Ciao! Manhattan," which had been completed after the deeply troubled Sedgwick's 1971 death. Holzer, having dropped her nickname, reteamed with "Ciao! Manhattan" co-director David Weisman to produce the critically and commercially acclaimed "Kiss of The Spider-Woman" (1985), which was nominated for Best Picture and won Best Actor for star William Hurt at the 1986 Oscars. Holzer then went on to act as executive producer on the cult erotic thriller "Naked Tango" (1990). Although largely retired, she returned to the film business in 2013 as executive producer of Harmony Korine's critically and commercially successful crime romp "Spring Breakers."