Actress Jane Alexander to tell stories of wild things in Petaluma

Tony Award winning actor Jane Alexander will appear in Petaluma on Thursday to read from her new book, “Wild Things, Wild Places.”|

Jane Alexander, award-winning actor and former National Endowment for the Arts director, can’t have much to say about lions and tigers and birds, can she? Or can she?

The Academy Award nominee and Emmy-Tony-Obie Award winning actor is also the author of “Wild Things, Wild Places: Adventurous Tales of Wildlife and Conservation on Planet Earth.” Tonight, she will appear in Petaluma to read from her clear-eyed and beautifully produced book and share her explorations into some of the wildest parts of the planet.

“I’m enthralled with this time we’re living in,” Alexander said in a phone interview. “That may sound weird, as a lot about the conservation movement can be depressing and despairing, but I find the possibilities for success fascinating. The juxtaposition of the huge changes going on here on Earth, which we’ve had such a hand in hastening, with the revolution in technology and our ability to save the planet makes this a very exciting time.”

Alexander’s lifelong passion for birds led her away from movie sets and into forests, jungles and mountains around the world. Her outdoor wandering provided balance to the very internal “exploration of human behavior, emotion and the mind” involved in acting. The ability to search for field marks and behaviors of different species was in her blood.

“Observation was already ingrained in me because that’s what we do as actors,” she said.

In Belize in the 1980s, while researching a screenplay about a female field biologist, Alexander met one of the world’s leading real-life field biologists and preservationists, Alan Rabinowitz, aka Tiger Man. His international efforts to study and protect jaguars sparked Alexander’s quest to meet other scientists and help promote awareness of their research.

Among her passions are the big cats in Belize, Brazil, India, Africa and Thailand; the bison and mountain lion in North America; and rare birds in Peru, Ecuador, Hawaii and other locales. She sought out teams of biologists on several continents to learn the status of rare and endangered species, and revisited early environmental work like Rachel Carson’s inroads against DDT.

“Pesticides and herbicides are in everything now,” Alexander says. “And the big corporations don’t want the truth exposed, so they pay a lot of money to keep it quiet or take the little people to court.”

“Neonicotinoids are a huge problem - bad for birds and ecosystems, ergo bad for people. In Ethiopia, for instance, the cranes are having trouble holding on. Many of the birds go into agricultural fields for leftover seeds where neonics are used. Those same pesticides are killing bees.

“You can’t attribute declines all to neonics, but until more studies are done, the jury’s still out.”

Alexander has been a writer since her youth, keeping journals that provide the foundations for her books. “Wild Things, Wild Places” is based on journals dating back to teen years traveling with her family in the West.

Her first book, “Command Performance: An Actress in the Theater of Politics” (2001), was based on journals kept in the 1990s during five years as NEA director.

Rebecca Lawton is a Sonoma-based author and scientist.

What: Jane Alexander in conversation with Rebecca Lawton, to benefit Madrone Audubon Society

When: 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 20

Where: Copperfield’s Books, 140 Kentucky St., Petaluma

Admission: Free

Information: 707-762-0563

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