Janice Rule, born Mary Janice Rule on August 15, 1931, in Norwood, Ohio, was an American actress and psychotherapist. She began her career as a dancer at the Chez Paree nightclub in Chicago at the age of 15, which paid for her ballet lessons.

She later studied acting at the Chicago Professional School and made her Broadway debut in the 1949 production of Miss Liberty. She was pictured on the cover of Life magazine on January 8, 1951, as someone to watch in the entertainment industry.

She gained a contract by Warner Bros., and her first credited screen role was as Virginia in Goodbye, My Fancy (1951), which featured Joan Crawford in the lead. However, her Warner contract lapsed after only two films due to her disagreements with the studio's attitude toward women's beauty.

In 1953, Janice Rule was part of the original Broadway cast of William Inge's Picnic, playing the role of Madge Owens, which led her to turn down the role in On the Waterfront (1954).

She appeared in several Broadway shows, including The Flowering Peach, The Happiest Girl in the World, and Night Circus, where she met her third husband, Ben Gazzara. Her other films in the 1950s included A Woman's Devotion (1956), Gun for a Coward (1957), and Bell, Book and Candle (1958).

Janice Rule married three times, first to N. Richard Nash in 1955, then to Robert Thom in 1956, and finally to Ben Gazzara in 1961, with whom she had two children, Elizabeth Gazzara and Kate Thom Fitzgerald.

After her divorce from Gazzara in 1979, she focused on her career as a psychotherapist, earning her PhD from the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute.

She passed away on October 17, 2003, in New York City.