Jane Hitchcock obit

Novelist, Socialite & Poker Player Jane Hitchcock Passes Away at Age 78

 

She was not on the list.

Jane Hitchcock (born November 24, 1946), an accomplished New York Times-bestselling mystery novelist and avid poker player, has passed away at the age of 78. The cause of death is currently unknown.

A well-known player at East Coast stops such as Maryland Live! and MGM National Harbor, Hitchcock had $289,471 in lifetime tournament earnings dating back to 2013, according to the Hendon Mob. That included a career-high $57,645 for finishing second in the 2022 Venetian DeepStack Championship Series Event #103: $800 NLH Monster Stack.

The news was shared with the poker world via a social media post from 2021 WSOP Ladies Event champion Lara Eisenberg:

In 2017, The Washington Post wrote a feature article on Hitchcock profiling the “socialite’s unlikely journey from Park Avenue to the poker table.” In it, author Roxanne Roberts explained that Hitchcock took poker seriously just eight years prior, after her grandmother passed away,y and she found PokerStars.

“My grandmother said, ‘Love the cards and the cards will love you.’ I know what she meant,” she recalls. “The cards loved me when I needed to find an escape,” Hitchcock explained.

“The game quickly became an obsession, a balm, an entry into a new and fascinating world,” The Washington Post story read. “She’s still not a great player, she admits, but she’s competitive and wily and has won almost $40,000 over the past four years.”

“Few of her opponents ever know that she was once a Park Avenue debutante, a close friend of Jackie Kennedy Onassis. They probably don't care about her best-selling murder mysteries or a lifetime of jet-setting with the rich and famous … ‘Poker is like life,’ she says. ‘At the poker table, everyone makes mistakes, everybody plays hands wrong. It’s a game that teaches you about not dwelling on the past, but also learning from your mistakes. You play the next hand as it comes.’”

Hitchcock, an accomplished playwright and screenwriter, was the author of several mystery novels, including Bluff, which drew upon her love of poker. In an interview with Criminal Element about the book, Hitchcock made a poignant point about poker.

“First of all, I would never say I had ‘mastered’ poker. If anything, the game is my master. It’s taught me a lot about life and how to deal with adversity—namely, there’s no point in dwelling on bad luck or one’s mistakes. Hard as it is, you sometimes have to say, ‘Next Hand,’ and get on with it.”

PokerNews offers its condolences to the friends and families of Jane Hitchcock, who will be sorely missed by the poker community.

Jane Stanton Hitchcock (November 24, 1946 – June 23, 2025) was an American author, playwright, and screenwriter. She has written several plays but is known mostly for her mystery novels Trick of the Eye, The Witches' Hammer, Social Crimes, One Dangerous Lady, Mortal Friends, and Bluff, which was the winner of the 2019 Hammett Prize. Hitchcock also wrote the screenplays for Our Time and First Love.

Hitchcock wrote a screenplay (under the name Jane C. Stanton) for the 1974 film Our Time, directed by Peter Hyams. The film was set in 1955 at an all-girls boarding school in Massachusetts and dealt with the issue of abortion in a privileged setting. In 1977, Paramount released First Love, a film written by Hitchcock who shared credit with David Freeman, and was directed by Joan Darling.

In 1981, The American Place Theatre produced Hitchcock's play Grace under the direction of Peter Thompson. The Off-Broadway play was Hitchcock's "first professional New York City production." In 1983, another play by Hitchcock, a farce entitled Bhutan, was staged at the South Street Theater in Manhattan.

Hitchcock's theatrical adaptation titled The Custom of the Country, based on Edith Wharton's novel by the same name, was staged by Shakespeare & Company at The Mount, Wharton's former home in Lenox, Massachusetts. In September 1985, the play was staged by the Second Stage Theatre under the direction of Daniel Gerroll

Hitchcock was born Jane Johnston Crowley on November 24, 1946, to Robert Crowley, a surgeon, and Joan Crowley (known professionally as Joan Alexander), an actress known for playing Lois Lane on the radio serial The Adventures of Superman, and Della Street on the radio serial Perry Mason. Joan divorced Crowley and married Arthur Stanton, who adopted Jane when she was nine years old; at which time, Jane came to be known as Jane Crowley Stanton.