There’s Something About Jayne
Clifton native Jayne Modean influenced a box office smash Story by Jordan Schwartz Peter Farrelly recognized Jayne Modean’s face. Nearly every American male who grew up in the ’70s would have. Well, at least the ones with four sisters who all read Seventeen magazine in 1977. Modean, a model and actress from Clifton, appeared on the cover three times that year and Farrelly, an upand-coming Hollywood writer and director in the late ’80s, had a crush on her. “He saw me out and so he had Woody Harrelson come talk to me,” remembered Modean about the first time she met her friend, Peter. The 1975 CHS grad had a small role on a 1987 episode of Cheers, the popular television series on which Harrelson starred. The actor
Jayne Modean, Miss Teenage Clifton 1974, at the Miss Teenage America Pageant in Arkansas. She went on to be featured on several magazine covers.
would also play the lead in Farrelly’s 1996 hit, Kingpin. Peter later told Jayne that his movies, Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary— stories about stupid or hard-luck men chasing after beautiful women—were based on their relationship. But that wasn’t Modean’s only brush with pop culture lore. In early 1990, she appeared in an episode of Full House. During taping, the actress struck up a “whirlwind romance” with Dave Coulier, who played Uncle Joey. “When I met Dave, he said, ‘I want to have a son named Luc someday,’” Modean recalled. She eventually granted his wish, giving birth to a baby boy in February 2009 • Clifton Merchant
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