- She has six grandchildren.
- Her children are named Penelope "Penny" and Wayne.
- When she first started working as an actress, Metro introduced her as 18 years old and half Cherokee, neither of which was true (she was underage at the time).
- Her one and only talkie, "Lummox", still survives at the British Film Institute as a nitrate print. Sound discs survive at UCLA.
- Her cousin worked as an extra in movies. When she was in high school, she came with her cousin to work, which is where studio bosses recognized her beauty and offered her a job.
- Janis was one of the last surviving performers to have played at least one major role in silent films.
- Janis' only other film appearance was in Harry Garson's The White Captive, shot on location in Southeast Asia for Universal. In the Sept. 27, 1930, issue of the Norwalk Hour, a brief note mentioned that Garson "reports some of the most remarkable jungle material ever secured and the first to be taken with sound equipment." Perhaps Garson was making that up, or perhaps his work was ruined either during the trip back to California or at some local lab, for The White Captive was deemed unreleasable. The film did, however, gain a certain degree of notoriety when the wife of technician Sidney Desmond Lund, with whom she had recently gotten married, filed a $25,000 lawsuit against Janis for stealing her husband's affections during the months-long shoot. The lawsuit was eventually dropped.
- Janis was best known for playing opposite Ramon Novarro in the MGM film The Pagan (1929), for which MGM publicity portrayed her as half-Cherokee. The Pagan, directed by W. S. Van Dyke, was a part-sound film, with music and sound effects only, and featured "Pagan Love Song" on the soundtrack.
- Her short film career began when she was visiting a cousin, who was working on a film for Fox Film Corporation in 1927. Her beauty was noticed at once and she was asked to make a screen test. Janis went on to make six films: five silents and one talkie.
- Janis retired in 1930 and married bandleader Wayne King in 1932. The vice president of the Music Corporation of America, W. H. Stein, was best man.
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