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| Clayburgh in Starting Over (1979) and Running With Scissors (2006) |
But Clayburgh's heyday was unquestionably in the late 1970s, when she became something like the screen embodiment of Modern Liberated Woman. Clayburgh will always be connected in cultural history to her zeitgeist moment in 1978 when she starred in Paul Mazurky's frisky Best Picture nominee An Unmarried Woman. In the film her husband suddenly leaves her for a younger woman and she starts dating again, becoming a sexually liberated woman as a single mother with the help of randy virile Alan Bates. Clayburgh was a possible winner, too, but Jane Fonda (who she had bested at Cannes tying with Isabelle Huppert for Violette), shared the campaign advantage of headlining a Best Picture nominee with a hot topic (Vietnam); Fonda won.Clayburgh's second consecutive Oscar nomination can almost be seen a sequel, a bit of afterglow from her first. She's playing two different characters and the second film is more of a comedy but in the first her divorce means she's Starting Over and in the second it's Burt Reynolds's turn. Clayburgh is the new woman in his life.
My favorite moment from An Unmarried Woman
Though Clayburgh will remain An Unmarried Woman in the historical imagination she was actually A Married Woman. She married the playwright and screenwriter David Rabe exactly one year and three days after An Unmarried Woman was released. How about that? (Does anyone know if the newlyweds attended the Oscars in April 1979? Inside Oscar doesn't say.) Our condolences go out to Rabe and their three children this morning.
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15 comments:
Jill was also marvelous in The Wedding Party. Amazing actress. May she rest...
May rest her soul in peace. She was a great actress.
Sad. I'll always think of Clayburgh in Bertolucci's La Luna, an absolutely haunting film and performance
OMG, I checked your blog and I found this.
She was fantastic! Rest In Peace!!!
She was really great when she was on Saturday Night Live, one of the hosts of the 1st season.
For me it's La Luna, too. The movie hasn't aged that well, but she is haunting, really. RIP.
Well, at least it wasn't someone like REALLY famous who died. RIP Jill Clayburn.
This is really sad, she was a great actress.
I find in reference to her long time marriage this quote from PEOPLE.com: 'She and Rabe married in 1978. When asked why, Clayburgh told PEOPLE: "So people would stop asking me about my personal life. If you're married, they just assume you're happy."'
I am glad she died.
Heaven needed a talented, beautiful, shining beacon of hope such as she to deliver a message of faith and hope to mankind so beautiful, unending, and full of love that all the world would fall in awe of its unlimited grasp upon their souls. The breath of wonder and existence fills us all, and Jill, being the timeless example of pious serene beauty that she is, has finally become part of that for all eternity, taking a real place among the stars and shining her inimitable grace and humor upon us.
RIP Jill.
She was a great and fascinating actress, very much due for a resurgence. A sad sad loss
She was a wonderful actress.
She had two upcoming fims: Love & Other Drugs, and Bridesmaids.
What a wonderful actress - Loved her in "Starting Over", as well - she was so quirky and loveable in it. "An Unmarried Woman" is a fantastic movie and she is fantastic in it.
Tiny correction - the play was called "Naked Girl on the Apian Way" - I was fortunate enough to see her in it, and got a chance to chat with her a little bit after the play. She was kind and lovely, and I will always remember that day.
She gives one of my favourite performances in An Unmarried Woman. R.I.P. Such a lovely woman.
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