Jill Clayburgh passes away at 66, God Bless

I can’t believe it. I love all the Jill Clayburgh films of the 70s. My mom took me to all of them., Clayburgh was the embodiment of the post divorce single urban woman of the 70s. She was hilarious.  I LOL just thinking of several scenes with her and Burt Reynolds.

‘An Unmarried Woman’ was the film ode to an entire generation of women my mom’s age who have a similiar life experience (watch it here).The scene where she walks outside and hurls in a garbage can is gritty but oh so real. She delivered powerful performances of women whose life as they knew it was over, suddenly, and she brought humor as well as pathos to the roles.

I cannot find a clip but in ‘Starting Over’, Burt Reynolds and Jill Clayburgh are both walking to the same destination, a blind date, and she thinks he is stalking her, she spins around and says ‘Ive got a knife and Ill cut your balls off!” Moments later Burt walks into the apartment where their mutual friend is comforting Jill after her ‘near attack’. HI-LA-RI-OUS!

Clayburgh’s Erica did the ‘freedom dance’ in her apartment before Risky Business and Tom Cruise~

WSJ:

Jill Clayburgh, whose portrayals of strong women in such movies as “An Unmarried Woman” and “Starting Over,” reflected the feminist movement, has died. She was 66. Clayburgh’s characters were often independent, urban, smart and even a little neurotic. As she told a New York Times reporter in 1982, “I do best with characters who are coming apart at the seams.”

A classic example is Erica, the Manhattan wife and mother in “An Unmarried Woman” who grapples with her husband’s decision to leave her for a younger woman. The film displays Clayburgh’s gift for playing characters who were outwardly brittle but inwardly resilient and earned her an Oscar nomination….