The Lover: What happened to Jane March?? - PROAZN.COM COMMUNITY: Asian Men and All Races of Women Coming Together

Sami · #1 (**permalink**) 07-11-2007, 11:14 AM

Jane March - The sinner from Pinner/"The Lover"

Here's an updated article on Jane March, the girl from 'The Lover'.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/film/a...ner/article.do

The original sinner
By Grace Bradberry, Evening Standard 23.01.04

It is lunchtime in the ballroom of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, and a man is warming up chicken fillets for Jane March. Not the kind you eat, but those funny silicon pads that can be stuffed down a bra - preferably after they have been heated up with a hairdryer. By the age of 30, most of us have filled out enough not to require extra padding, but despite reaching that age, Miss March remains disconcertingly waif-like. 'It would be nice to put on a bit of weight,' she tells me later, having declined to order from the lunch menu.

There is something just a little bit contrary about Jane March, which is what French film director Jean-Jacques Annaud liked when he first spotted her picture on the cover of Just Seventeen. She was 'this little girl with a faintly bored air and the look of revolt in her eyes,' he said, a look he knew he could exploit in his adaptation of The Lover, Marguerite Duras' autobiographical novel based on her own seduction by a wealthy Chinese man in colonial Saigon.

Jane was only 18 when she shot the movie, and 19 when it was released in Britain in 1992. She gave a subtle performance - astonishingly so for someone without any acting experience - but all that was overshadowed by the hype surrounding her steamy love scenes with Tony Leung. Such was their 'erotic authenticity' that rumours began that there had been no acting involved. Annaud did nothing to end the speculation - 'Whether it is simulated or experienced is of little importance to me,' he said deviously. Jane was quickly dubbed 'the sinner from Pinner', after the staid London suburb where she grew up.

'It went on and on for years,' she says now. 'I'm tempted to get it tattooed somewhere - if I thought there was any truth in it I would.'

So she can laugh about it now? 'Yes, but at the time it was just all very serious. I don't think The Lover would even have an impact now - it's become very hard to shock people.' I suggest that the film itself wasn't particularly eye-boggling, only the gossip. She looks a little cross. 'It was considered quite shocking at the time, or I wouldn't have been hauled over the coals quite as much.' In the hype that preceded the film's release, Annaud rather ungallantly suggested that Jane had been a virgin when he cast her, but had gained some experience before they shot the film.

Was it scary making a sexual film at such a young age? 'No. I was very confident going in. I never did a scene where I didn't know what it was about. But looking back I do surprise myself. The things I've done! Oh God, my poor parents. What I've put them through.'

Both she and her parents were 'overwhelmed' by the publicity, she says. Jane's background was portrayed as incredibly humble. In fact, Bernard Horwood (Jane's full name is Jane March Horwood) was teaching design and technology at a local secondary school when the film came out. He and Jane's mother, Jean, still live in their nice semi in Pinner.

But if Jane felt under attack after the furore surrounding The Lover, it didn't stop her heading for Hollywood to star opposite Bruce Willis in an even raunchier film, Color of Night. During the shoot she fell in love with one of the film's producers, Carmine Zozzora. Just two months after their first date he proposed and they flew by private jet to Lake Tahoe, marrying in the Dream-Maker wedding chapel. She was only 20, he was 35 and a Hollywood hotshot. Besides being a producer on the film, he was also the head of Bruce Willis's production company Flying Heart.

After they were married, Zozzora put Jane in another film, the 1996 spy thriller Provocateur, for which he was executive producer. But after that everything went very quiet surrounding Jane March.

In fact, there had barely been a peep from her for a decade when she suddenly showed up at the World Music Awards in Monte Carlo last year, wearing some large rocks from Chopard. One juicy piece of gossip had it that Jade Jagger threw a hissy fit, having believed that Jane would wear Garrard. Jane smiles at the story. 'It's not true. First of all, I don't argue with anyone,' she says. 'And I don't think anyone's really that rude.'

Still, there are deeper mysteries - such as what has Jane been doing all these years? She is keen to maintain some mystique about her lifestyle, saying that she lives 'between London, Paris and LA'. After a bit of pressing, she concedes she has just the one home, in North London. How long has she been back? 'It's been gradual - four or five years.' There is no mention of Mr Zozzora, so I ask point-blank if they are still married. 'You know what, it's not something I want to talk about,' she says, peering into her hot chocolate. I'm guessing that they're not.

She is a little more forthcoming about why her film career appeared to trail off after Color of Night in 1994. 'I became a little bit disillusioned,' she says. 'I wasn't doing the things that I wanted to be doing or getting access to the scripts I wanted to be in, and the parts I wanted to play. I'd been cast from the start as a leading lady, so I could only get leading lady roles.' Hoping to break the mould, she took a smaller part in a Charles Finch film with James Fox, Never Ever, but it didn't change much. Frustrated, she took some time out to travel.

Her work since then has included a B-movie (Tarzan and the Lost City, she played Jane) and a made-for-TV Dracula film called Dark Prince. Earlier this year she shot Beauty and the Beast in South Africa, with 'the guy who starred in Dungeons and Dragons, Justin Whalin'. Her next film is a French ensemble piece, and after that there could be another Hollywood movie. 'But what I really want to do is a British film,' she adds. 'I've never even done one. I've never even shot here. Lots of people still think I'm French or Vietnamese.'

She still gets recognised, she says, but people aren't always sure who she is. 'Incredibly, I've been mistaken for Kylie Minogue many times. People look at me and you can see them thinking, "She's somebody - but I don't know who." '

Famous or not, her face would stop people in their tracks, which was why Sarah Doukas originally signed her to the model agency Storm. 'Sarah was the only agent who would take me on because I'm 5ft 2in. She joked, "Ooh, we could superimpose your face on to an Amazonian body.'' '

After years away from modelling, Jane has now signed a contract to be the face of Chopard jewellery. 'We chose Jane for her natural beauty and international appeal,' said Chopard in a statement. 'When we met Jane, we instantly clicked and bonded with her happy spirit, which matches the Chopard "Happy Spirit". There is an air of mystery and intrigue which surrounds Jane and we like that.'

Jane sounds equally thrilled about the Chopard contract. 'It has,' she says candidly, 'given me a lot of breathing space to really pick the parts I want to do. This is the beginning of my concerted effort to stay busy.' Over a decade on, it looks like the sinner from Pinner is back.