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Christabel Jane Drewry was
born on April 11, 1913, in Eastleigh, England. Little did she
know what a stir she would cause some 30 years later.
In her late teens, Drewry
became an artist's model.
In 1932, Norman Pett created
a comic called, "Jane's Journal, the Diary of a Bright Young
Thing," which debuted in the (London) Daily Mirror, and was
published six days a week. The heroine of the comic, Jane, a
curvaceous blond secret agent, was modeled after Pett's wife.
In 1938, writer Don Freeman
began contributing to the comic. When World War II broke out,
"Jane," in one adventure after another, did something that most
comic book heroes and heroes didn't do; to keep up the moral
of British sailors, soldiers, and airmen abroad, Jane began
showing more of her curves as she began to wear less and less
clothes.
Not only did Jane, the comic
book character striptease her way into the hearts of servicemen,
so did actress Christabel Jane Drewry, now Christabel Leighton-Porter,
who stripteased her way through music halls as the real-life
"Jane," in "Jane in The Mirror." She earned the title of Britain's
"Perfect Girl" in a London beauty pageant in 1939.
"Jane" found herself in
one escapade after another, fighting the bad guys (Nazi spies),
and narrowly escaping death, all the while stripping down to
her underwear, at least by the end of the comic strip.
Like America's Betty Grable,
pictures of "Jane" found her way into the dreams of servicemen,
and onto walls in their barracks. Many of the lovelorn Brits
went so far as to propose marriage to the real-life "Jane,"
who, unbeknownst to them, was already secretly married (she
didn't want to disappoint her fans). So who was the lucky Mr.
"Jane"? He was a Fly Boy-a Royal Air Force pilot named Arthur.
In 1949, Leighton-Porter
also played the movie version of Jane in, "The Adventures of
Jane."
"Susie," another steamy
comic pin-up-girl, eventually joined "Jane." The real "Jane,"
that is the comic book heroine Jane, retired in 1959.
Christabel Leighton-Porter,
aka "Jane," died on December 6, 2000, in Horsham, England. She
was 87.
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