Jan Sterling (April 3 1921 – March 26 2004) was an Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning American actress.

She was born Jane Sterling Adriance in New York City, into a well-to-do family. Sterling was educated in private schools before heading to Europe with her family. She was schooled by private tutors in London and Paris, and was enrolled in Fay Compton's dramatic school in London.

As a teenager she returned to Manhattan, and billed with such aliases as Jane Adriance and Jane Sterling, began her career by making a Broadway appearance in Bachelor Born, and went on to appear in such major stage offerings as Panama Hattie, Over 21 and Present Laughter. In 1947, she made her movies debut in Tycoon, now billed as Jane Darian. Seldom cast in passive roles, Sterling was at her best in parts calling for hard-bitten, sometimes hard-boiled determination. Actress Ruth Gordon insisted she change her stage name and the two hit upon Jan Sterling.

She entered films with a prominent supporting role in Johnny Belinda (1948). Shuttling between films and television, she appeared in nearly all the major live anthologies of the 1950s, playing in film roles in Caged (1950), Mystery Street (1950), The Mating Season (1951),The Big Carnival (1951), Flesh and Fury (1952), The Human Jungle (1954), and Female on the Beach (1955), while making a more sympathetic impression in Sky Full of Moon (1952).

In 1954 Sterling was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The High and the Mighty. Also the same year, she travelled to England to play the role of Julia in the first film version of George Orwell's 1984, despite being several months pregnant at the time. During the following years, she appeared regularly in movies like Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, Kathy O, and The Female Animal. She retired from films in favor of the stage in 1969 and returned before the cameras in 1979 to portray Lou Henry Hoover in the TV miniseries Backstairs at the White House.

Married and divorced to actor John Merivale in the 1940s, Sterling's career began to slip after the death of her second husband, actor Paul Douglas, in 1959. In the 1970s, she entered into a long-lasting personal relationship with the late actor and American expatriate in the UK, Sam Wanamaker, but they never married.

Inactive for nearly two decades, she made an appearance at the Cinecon Film Festival in Los Angeles in the fall of 2001.

After a long bout with diabetes, a broken hip, a series of strokes and the death of her only child, son Adams Douglas, in 2003, Sterling died in 2004 in Los Angeles, California, aged 82.

She is interred in the Garden of Actors Churchyard Cemetery in London, England.

One of Hollywood's more talented and watchable stars on screen was sullen, stick-thin 50s actress Jan Sterling who didn't quite reach the top echelon of stardom but certainly ensured audiences of a real good time with her sexy pout and flashy ways in soaps, film noir and saucy comedy. Jan was born Jane Sterling Adriance in Manhattan in 1921 to a well-to-do family. Her mother remarried when Jan was a youngster and the family relocated to Europe where Jan was schooled by private tutors in London and Paris. At 15, the teenager, who by this time possessed a strong British accent, was enrolled in Fay Compton's dramatic school in London. A strong-minded young lady with a heartfelt passion for acting, she returned to Manhattan to conquer Broadway and by the age of 17 had found her first ingénue role in "Bachelor Born," playing (naturally) a young British lady. Over the next 11 years, she dominated Broadway as proper British ladies while billing herself as Jane Adrian. One of her highlights was working with the legendary Ruth Gordon (I) in 1942 in Ruth's first play entitled "Over 21." As Billie Dawn in the Chicago company of "Born Yesterday," Jan bowled over the critics and seemed almost a shoo-in to do the 1950 film version but she lost out in the end to Judy Holliday. The ash-blonde broke quickly into films supporting Oscar-winning Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda (1948) in a key, emotional role. To her delight, her docile, ladylike image was finally behind her as she ventured on in movies playing cheap floozies, hard-bitten dames, and lethal schemers. She stood out in such 'bad girl' film roles as Caged (1950), Ace in the Hole (1951), Flesh and Fury (1952), Human Jungle, The (1954), and Female on the Beach (1955), while making a nicer, or at least a more sympathetic impression, in Sky Full of Moon (1952) and High and the Mighty, The (1954), which earned her an Oscar nomination. Married and divorced to actor John Merivale in the 1940s, Jan's career slowed down considerably after the death of her second husband, actor Paul Douglas (I), in 1959. She refocused on stage and TV but at a slower step. She also involved herself in humanitarian causes. In the 70s, she entered into a strong personal relationship with actor Sam Wanamaker. They never married but stayed together until his death in 1993. Inactive for nearly two decades, Jan made an appearance at the Cinecon Film Festival in Los Angeles in the fall of 2001, still charming audiences at the age of 80. On 26 March 2004, Jan Sterling passed away at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. She was 83.