Wisdom from the Trenches - Producer Jane Goldenring ’73 Embraces Her Calling

In the early 1990s, Jane Goldenring ’73 had come to a crossroad. For almost a decade, she’d served as an executive at Disney, working her way up to Vice President of Production. Then one day, an unexpected snag during filming of the movie White Fang altered the trajectory of her career. The movie’s director dropped out, only half the script had been written, and crisis ensued. So, Goldenring got out from behind her desk at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California, and sprang into action. 

“I literally flew to Alaska while the movie was being shot to help get it on its feet,” she said.

From that time onward, Goldenring knew that her true passion in the entertainment industry lay not in the executive office, but down in the trenches. 

“I really loved being immersed in the process and being on a set, whereas as an executive, you’re only a visitor,” she said. 

Goldenring has been in the trenches now for more than 30 years, first as an in-house producer at Disney and then, beginning in 1999, as Founder and President of Goldenring Productions, producing a multitude of movies, TV shows, and indie films, as well as working with scores of notable and talented actors, writers, and directors. However, her lessons learned from experiencing things up close and personal go far beyond the world of entertainment. 

During an all-school assembly on Friday, April 28, 2023, Goldenring was honored as the 2022–2023 Hopkins Distinguished Alumna. During her presentation, Goldenring told her life’s story, from her student days at Day Prospect Hill (DPH) and Hopkins to her experiences as a film and television producer at Disney and beyond. Goldenring said her goal was to convey that the arts are important and can be a career and that finding your path doesn’t always happen in a straight line. 

“There were a lot of kids who are still trying to figure out their path, obviously, but also where their passions lie,” she said of the Hopkins students she spoke to that day. 

Goldenring’s parents and her experiences in school are what nurtured her interest in film. “My parents always took us to the theater, and we had outings for DPH. Hopkins also had this theater program where you went to Long Wharf and the Yale Repertory Theater,” she said. “That was a huge influence on me and the beginning of my sense that this is something I’d like to be involved in.”

Despite excelling as a student, Goldenring struggled with knowing how and where to fit in. Admittedly, she was a bit of an eccentric kid whose interests tended to stray outside the mainstream. 

“I was not popular. I was awkward, and I had a really dark sense of humor, kind of an early iteration of a Goth girl,” she said during her talk. “I honestly didn't know if I was ever going to fit in anywhere. Translation: I was a quirky person.” 

Goldenring said her experiences at both DPH and Hopkins collectively influenced her career as
a storyteller. 

“I have more of the sense of what it means to be an outsider, and a lot of the teen stuff I do is about outsiders.” Radio Rebel (a film Goldenring produced) is about a child who comes out of her shell when she becomes a radio personality. “I had to fight a certain level of shyness and that made me more of an outsider at school, because your insecurity on the inside finds its way to the outside. It’s a period of time where everything is felt more intensely, and I remember that really well,” she said.

While at Hopkins, Goldenring began to realize that her future would have an artistic component, and in her junior year, she applied to colleges as an art major. Everything looked rosy, that is, until a pottery course threw a wrench in her plans. “When I sat down at the wheel, it was an unmitigated disaster,” she told the students, eliciting laughter. The hand-built pot she ended up creating through her valiant efforts was, in her words, “possibly one of the ugliest things you’ve ever seen.”

Far from discouraging her pursuit of the arts, the pot became a symbol and a metaphor for perseverance and possibility. “That pot represents the best and the worst of me—my flaws, my strengths,” she told the students. “In equal measure, there's the teen trying a skill she was never going to master, especially in the time allotted. There’s the adult striving for perfection and struggling to accept that not everything needs to be perfect.” 

Today, as a teller and a peddler of tales, when Goldenring believes in the promise and possibility
of a story, she strives to get it told. “As a producer, I find stories I want to bring to life on the screen and find ways to get them made,” she told the students during assembly. “I don’t always succeed. Sometimes it takes years, but if I fall in love, or even like, with a tale worth telling, I will use all my resources to get it done.” Indeed, Goldenring’s impressive career is a testament to getting things done.

Amidst the long list of credits, Goldenring’s favorite film projects include Phenomenon with John Travolta and Kyra Sedgwick, the previously mentioned White Fang, Feast of July that she made alongside Merchant Ivory, and Jefferson in Paris, as well as many of the Disney Classic movies: Adventures in Babysitting, Hocus Pocus, and the TV movies Rocketeer, Radio Rebel, and Zapped. 

Following her assembly talk, Goldenring spoke in several classes, including Writing for Stage & Screen, Topics in Women’s History, and Dangerous Books, and hosted a lunchtime Q&A on campus with students and faculty. 

Reflecting back on her visit to Hopkins, Goldenring said there are many similarities but also some major differences between her own student experience and that of students today. 

“We were all really smart kids because the emphasis was education. You hunkered down and you did the work. That has not changed,” she said. “The classes I went to and the kinds of questions the students asked showed that. The differences are the tools that the kids have at their disposal. There are far more choices available and many more opportunities. It was just really enjoyable to go around the campus, see the developments, and the quality and the diversity of students,” she added.