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Jane Seymour is an acclaimed actress with more than 50 motion pictures and television programs to her credit. She is the author of Jane Seymour's Guide to Romantic Living and Two at a Time. In addition to her constant film and television work, Jane paints in watercolor and oil, and she exhibits and sells her work around the country. She also has her own clothing line featuring fabrics based on her paintings; her clothes are sold in the Crossing Pointe catalog. She lives with her husband, James Keach, and their children in Malibu, CA.

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In this inspiring memoir, internationally beloved actress Jane Seymour shows how she has learned to embrace and learn from the many changes in her life

Now fifty, Jane Seymour––the eternally beautiful star of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and countless other television shows and films––is a living testament to the rewards of embracing midlife and its challenges eagerly and gracefully.

In Remarkable Changes, she leads the reader through the challenges of those years––from the physical changes that come with the territory to the emotional transformations that accompany this passage of life.

From understanding the stages of change, to making every moment significant, she helps us find the true value in our life transitions, from marriage and divorce to career changes to milestones in the lives of our parents and children. Whether we initiate change in our life or it is thrust upon us by circumstances beyond our control, Jane shows that we should stop coping with change and start actively incorporating it into our lives, using the hard–won wisdom weᵥ all gained through the years.

Holding up as an example her own life and the lives of those closest to her, Seymour empowers us to accept life shifts and teaches us how to take even the toughest situations and turn them into strengthening tools. She talks about her own experiences with divorce and remarriage, children and stepchildren, and her new twin boys, and she describes her indomitable mother's difficult years in a World War II prison camp in Indonesia. Her best friend faced her own challenges when learning to understand her son's mental illness, and another friend started a grief recovery organization when his wife and son were murdered.

We all need to face the beginnings and endings that make up our constantly changing lives. And this warm, inspiring book shows that we can all learn how to make each change remarkable.

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Remarkable Changes

ReganBooks

Chapter One

Take an Honest Look at Yourself

Examine Your Roots

When everything seems up in the air, and I don'tinstantly know what to do next, I've found that if I take an honestlook at myself and at my predicament, I have a stronger starting pointfrom which to make decisions. If I do not, my decisions all seem to beoff center.

Taking a hard look at myself isn't something I was born knowinghow to do, but something I came to understand a bit of as I was growingup. However, I don't believe I fully understood just what this particularsignpost meant until I was nearly forty years old, and I wasfaced with one of the most painful episodes in my life -- divorce andnear bankruptcy all at once. As my life crumbled in little piecesaround me, and I found myself at a total loss as to what to do about it,I had no choice but to take that honest look at who I was, and then atwhat was needed.

Luckily, long before that, there was the groundwork lovingly laid bymy parents, who helped me to develop an honest and positive image ofmyself -- one that started with understanding and accepting who I was. While I must admit I haven't always acted on that image, still, so manytimes it has proved to be the element deep inside myself that hasallowed me to find a way to rise above even the most painful episodes.

I was the firstborn, and I came into the world a year and a day aftermy parents were married. When I was a child, I used to tease them,embarrass them in public, by saying simply that I was born the dayafter they were married, ignoring the year that had passed. Of coursein those days it seemed very shocking. My mother, Mieke, who isDutch and from the town of Deventer in Holland, was in her thirtieswhen she had me, and she was very beautiful, with dark, dark hair,high cheekbones, and beautiful eyes. My father, Dr. John Frankenberg,had jet-black hair and a little mustache, and he was often mistakenfor David Niven.

After my birth in 1951, my two sisters appeared in rapid succession.Sally is one year and four months younger than I, and Annie is one yearand two months younger than Sally. Our first home outside of Londonwas very small, with just two bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen,in the not-so-nice part of Wimbledon. My mother had a home businessat the time, selling wine, tobacco, and other luxury items to the foreignembassies in London, so our tiny house was filled with people workingall day. My two sisters and I shared one bedroom, sleeping in beds thatfolded up against the walls when they weren't in use. When all the bedswere down, it was almost impossible to walk from one side of the roomto the other! We had a long garden behind the house that led down tosome railroad tracks -- and we truly thought we lived in heaven.

When I was about ten, we moved to a large Victorian house in anicer part of Wimbledon, and now we really thought we had it all,with an even larger garden, where we grew vegetables and flowers,and lovely neighbors all around. The house still stands, and looks justas it did then -- a happy reminder of my teen years. We finally settledin a beautiful house in Hillingdon Middlesex, not far from HeathrowAirport, and nearly in the country. My mother, who is eighty-eight now, still lives in that house, and she fills it with people and parties atevery opportunity. Sadly, my father died in 1991, in October, justbefore my mother's birthday.

I was very close to both of my parents, but particularly to my father,who treated me like an eldest son. We didn't have any boys in the family,so I didn't realize until later on that sometimes in those days the boyin the family would be given the better education and taken more seriouslyin terms of what his future and prospects would be. I felt I gotthat kind of attention, especially from him, and I look back with gratitudeat what he offered me. In many ways, both my father and motherled me to believe I could be anything I dreamt of being.

As young girls, my sisters and I had a lot of adventures. My fatherwould read to us from the tales of the Greek heroes as we sat on his lap;that was the big treat. My parents were very keen on the theater, ballet,and opera, and we all listened to opera from a very early age. My fatherhad been the doctor for a number of the opera singers at CoventGarden. Sometimes the singers would give us tickets -- or sometimeswe'd purchase the cheapest ones ourselves and sit high up in the theaterlooking down on the expensive sections, waiting to see who hadn'tshown up so we could upgrade our seats at the intermission. We wouldgo into London on the weekends and he would show us the architectureof the city and take us to the museums and to the library. We weren'twealthy, so luckily a lot of these entertainments were free.

My father worked for the National Health system, so although heworked very hard he never made a lot of money. His income wasnever remotely like what people in America think all physicians make.

As a family, we belonged to an organization called the ScientificSociety, which stemmed, I'm certain, from the fact that my father was asurgeon and my mother, who was passionate about all science, hadworked as a nurse before she met him. The Society held lectures everyweek and we'd go as a family ...

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