Jane Pickens

Jane Pickens Hoving (August 10, 1907 – February 21, 1992) was an American singer on Broadway, radio and television for 20 years and later an organizer in numerous philanthropic and society events. She was the musical leader of the Pickens Sisters, a trio born on a Georgia plantation that reached national stardom in the 1930s with its own radio show, concert tours, and records.

Pickens Sisters The daughters of Mr. and Mrs. P.M. Pickens,

At first the sisters sang for friends, then at churches and schools. The family moved to Park Avenue in Manhattan in 1932, and a test recording for Victor made such an impression with radio executives that they hired the sisters unseen. Promoted as "Three Little Maids From Dixie", they appeared in Thumbs Up on Broadway Patti married radio actor Bob Simmons. In 1948 she had a radio program in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Education Of the sisters Jane Pickens, who arranged the group's numbers, was the most serious about music. She studied at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and the Fontainebleau in France and won fellowships at the Juilliard School where she studied voice with Anna Eugénie Schoen-René. She studied for two years with Marcella Sembrich, a Polish coloratura soprano.

Career Picken's professional debut was uncredited when she sang on radio station WSB during a vacation while she was a student at Curtis Institute. The announcer introduced her as Miss Incognito because she didn't know whether authorities at the school would be pleased about her performing on radio.

Pickens' other Broadway credits included Music in the Air (1951).

Pickens's first formal concert was in Chillicothe, Missouri, on February 15, 1949. She said that she had trained for concerts, but her life had taken a different direction, going back to her singing with her sisters and continuing with her work on radio. She had performed in concert settings before that night, but other performers were involved in each of those occurrences.

Pickens pursued her music career alone and had wide-ranging success, from musical comedy to opera and nightclub engagements. She had the American Melody Hour on CBS radio and the Jane Pickens Show on NBC radio,

She frequently performed benefits for charitable causes, including events for orphans, hospitals, youths, veterans and the disabled. When her career tapered off in the late 1950s, she turned to running hundreds of fund-raising affairs. Among her favorite causes were the Salvation Army and research into heart disease and cerebral palsy, a condition that afflicted her daughter. (or Clarke). They had a daughter. The marriage ended in divorce. Following Langley's death, she married businessman Walter Hoving. He died in 1989. She also had a home on Park Avenue in Manhattan.

Recognition In November 1949 Pickens received New York University's Annual Award Pickens for her "superb achievements in the musical and entertainment fields in general and for her stirring performance in Regina." The Jane Pickens Theater, a one-screen arthouse cinema that is the only remaining movie theater in Newport, was renamed after her in 1974. Pickens and her sister Patti performed at the dedication ceremony.