Betty Jane Rhodes
American actress (1921-2011)

Betty Jane Rhodes (April 21, 1921 – December 27, 2011) was an American actress and singer, most active in film during the late 1930s and the World War II era. She was also known as Jane Rhodes.
Early years
Rhodes was born in Rockford, Illinois on April 21, 1921. She began her broadcasting career when she was just eight years old.
Career
Film
Before Rhodes appeared on screen, she worked in films as a ghost singer at RKO Pictures, earning $200 per week for supplying the voice for actresses who moved their lips, pretending to sing.
Paramount Pictures signed Rhodes to her first film contract as an actress at age 15. She made her screen debut in the 1936 film Forgotten Faces in which she was credited as Jane Rhodes. In Forgotten Faces, Rhodes played an adopted daughter whose father, portrayed by Herbert Marshall, is arrested for killing a man with whom his wife was having an affair.
This was followed by a co-starring role in the 1936 western The Arizona Raiders. The film, in which she played the younger sister of Marsha Hunt's character, marked the first time Rhodes sang in a movie.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Betty Jane Rhodes” is american actress (1921-2011). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Betty, Jane and Rhodes, not as a finished interpretation.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4898856. VIAF identifies the subject as 229376128. The Library of Congress control number is no93022565. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1921, 2011 and 1936.
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This entry incorporates text from “Betty Jane Rhodes” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.