Stars & Players · Biography

Jan Sterling

1921–2004 · Actor

Biography

Jan Sterling (born Jane Sterling Adriance; April 3, 1921 – March 26, 2004) was an American actress. At her most active in films during the 1950s, she received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The High and the Mighty (1954) as well as an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination. Her best performance is often considered to be opposite Kirk Douglas, as the opportunistic wife in Billy Wilder's 1951 Ace in the Hole.

Notable Noir Roles

Appointment with Danger

1950Dir. Lewis Allen · Dodie

Al Goddard, a detective who works for the United States Postal Inspection Service, is assigned to arrest two criminals who've allegedly murdered a U.S. postal detective.

Union Station

1950Dir. Rudolph Maté · Marge Wrighter

Police catch a break when suspected kidnappers are spotted on a train heading towards Union Station. Police, train station security and a witness try to piece together the crime and get back the blind…

Mystery Street

1950Dir. John Sturges · Vivian Heldon

When a young woman's skeletal remains turn up on a Massachusetts beach, Barnstable cop Peter Moralas teams with Boston police and uses forensics, with the help of a Harvard professor, to determine the…

Split Second

1953Dir. Dick Powell · Dorothy 'Dottie' Vale

Escaped convicts hold hostages in a ghost town targeted for a nuclear bomb test.

Full Noir Filmography

7 films · 1950–1955