Jill Clayburgh, whose performance in AN UNMARRIED WOMAN reflected the growing women’s liberation movement, died Friday at her home in Lakeville. She was 66 years old.
The actress, who had recently finished two seasons as the rich matriarch of ABC’S DIRTY SEXY MONEY, had apparently been battling chronic lymphocytic leukemia for an astonishing 21 years according to her husband David Rabe.
“She dealt with the disease courageously, quietly and privately”, Rabe said, and “made it into an opportunity for her children to grow and be human.”
The actress won an Oscar nomination for 1978’s WOMAN directed by Paul Mazursky. And she shared best actress honors at Cannes with Isabelle Huppert for her portrayal of a young, comfortable woman who finds her world is shattered when her husband surprises her by asking for a divorce.
Clayburgh was an incredibly versatile talent with a distinctive, unique style. In 1978, Cue magazine described her “winsome naturalness,” characterized by “…quick movements, glances, shrugs, half-smiles and pensive, revealing expressions.”
Having attracted attention in the 1975 TV movie HUSTLING, in which she played a prostitute and earned an Emmy nomination. She teamed with Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder in the screwball mystery SILVER STREAK and with Burt Reynolds and Kris Kristofferson in the football comedy SEMI-TOUGH, based on Dan Jenkins’ best-seller. She and Reynolds had a good rapport, and she co-starred with him again in 1979’s STARTING OVER, where she was nominated for a second Oscar for best actress.
Clayburgh was born April 30, 1944 in New York City. Her father was a vice president of the Bancroft Bookcloth Company and an opera lover, while her mother was a production secretary to Broadway producer David Merrick.
While in college, she starred with friends and classmates Robert De Niro and Jennifer Salt in THE WEDDING PARTY, an indie film that another friend, Brian De Palma, helped direct.
After graduating from Sarah Lawrence, she worked for a year as a member of the Charles Street Playhouse repertory company in Boston. While there, Clayburgh formed a romantic attachment with one of the other performers, Al Pacino and they moved in together in New York, where she studied acting with Uta Hagen.
She appeared in several off-Broadway productions, including a couplet of plays with Pacino at the off-Broadway Astor Place Theater, eventually making her Broadway debut in 1970 in THE ROTHSCHILDS, a musical about a Jewish family that moved from the ghetto to become the richest bankers in Europe. She displayed her vocal talents again in the musical PIPPIN, directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse.
In addition to her husband, she is survived by three children, actress Lily Rabe, Michael Rabe and stepson Jason Rabe.
With thanks to The Associated Press
