Jane Badler (b. December 31, 1953 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American actress. She is perhaps best known known for her role as Diana, the chief antagonist in the 1980s sci-fi saga V.
Badler spent her teen years in Great Neck, New York, moving to Manchester, New Hampshire, when she was in high school. Badler won the title Miss New Hampshire and competed at the 1973 Miss America Pageant. Subsequently, she enrolled at the prestigious Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois to study drama.
Her first television role was on the daytime soap opera One Life to Live as Melinda Cramer Janssen from 1977 to 1981. She returned to the role in 1983. During her original stint, she also appeared in an episode of the primetime series Fantasy Island. Badler also starred on another daytime soap The Doctors, portraying Natalie Bell from 1981-82.
Badler then scored what is arguably her most prominent role, that of the villainous alien Diana in the 1983 NBC sci-fi mini-series V. She reprised the role in the 1984 sequel mini-series V: The Final Battle and again in V: The Series which ran for one season from 1984 to 1985. During this time, Badler's character was voted as the best ever sci-fi villain in a poll of television critics.
Following V, Badler guest-starred for the 1986-87 season on the hit primetime soap opera Falcon Crest as Meredith Braxton. Her other guest appearances during the 1980s included Riptide, Hotel, and Murder She Wrote.
In 1988, she played the role of Tania Winthrop in the short-lived action-adventure series The Highwayman. She then traveled to Australia to film episodes of the 1980s revival of Mission: Impossible for its second and last season, from 1989 to 1990. Badler played agent Shannon Reed. After the series ended, Badler moved to Australia permanently and married businessman Stephen Hains. They have two sons, Sam and Harry.
Her later Australian television roles included Cluedo (the British and Australian name of the board game known as Clue in the United States). She also had a guest starring role in Snowy River: The McGregor Saga.
Kenneth Johnson, the creator of V, has written a sequel novel to the original 1983 mini-series entitled V: The Second Generation, which was published in February 2008. The novel takes place 20 years after the original 1983 mini-series (but ignores V: The Final Battle and V: The Series) and once again features the character of Diana. Johnson claims to be currently involved in negotiations for either a film or television adaptation of the novel, but it remains to be seen if Badler would reprise the role for any potential production.
In recent years, Badler has forged a career in cabaret and on the stage in archy and mehitabel (based on Don Marquis's books of poetry), The Great Gatsby, The Singing Forest, Big Hair in America, and two one-woman shows, Shakin' the Blues Away and The Love Goddess: Rita Hayworth in which she sings.
Badler will release her debut solo album on June 1 2008. Entitled The Devil Has My Double it is an autobiographical album which is described as "a compulsive mix of fame, sex and solitude, set to a sweeping soundtrack of cold soul and passionate synthetics."
