It was always difficult to get the measure of Jill St. John.
JILL ST. JOHN |
It was always difficult to get the measure of Jill St. John.
When Jill started appearing in movies at the end of the 1950s, she was just another pretty actress. When in the early 1960s her photographs were being published on both sides of the Atlantic, she was just another pin-up trying to get ahead. Yet there were rumours that Jill had a stratospheric I. Q. Nothing else about her indicated unusual intelligence. The poses she struck in her publicity photographs, the type of parts she chose and the way she played those parts, all suggested nothing special apart from her looks.
However when in 1967 she made
"Tony Rome", the second of her two
films with Frank Sinatra, it became
clear that Jill was a better actress
than had been recognised. The
contrast between that performance - in a token female role which contributed
nothing to the plot -
and her playing of amiable bimbos in previous
movies was striking.
A little later, when Jill made "Diamonds Are Forever" at the age of thirty-one, an age when most women's bodies are deteriorating rapidly, it was obvious that she must have more self-discipline than other pin-ups. Her face had lost its youthful vitality, but her body was in remarkably good condition.
Even more unfathomable has been her attitude to work. Unlike Stella Stevens, Jill has avoided unglamorous roles in downbeat movies, yet she has sustained her career to the present day, which indicates that she takes it seriously. On the other hand Jill has worked in bursts of energy and there have been periods when she has done very little. Was this because no work was offered to her, because her private life was more important at the time or because she simply was not interested?
Jill St. John started her show business career very early. She was born Jill Oppenheimer in 1940, and was on stage five years later. (She once joked facetiously that the first five years of her life were wasted!) Jill moved into radio and had a successful career as a child radio actress. She also modelled children's clothes.
While in her 'teens, Jill married twice - both times to rich men, both times for brief periods - and then descended on Hollywood.
Almost immediately Jill was given a
contract by 20th Century Fox and played
small roles in half-forgotten movies that
are occasionally shown on television, but which Fox has not issued on DVD. Her
work in these movies is not at all
distinguished. When Fox responded to the financial
crisis created by "Cleopatra" and
"Something's Got To Give" by laying off as
many people as possible, Jill's days at Fox came to an end.
Her photographs began appearing in newspapers and magazines along with gossip about her relationship with Frank Sinatra. Her publicity pictures were conventional pin-up photos but usually fairly discreet: a hint of cleavage here, a flash of legs there - and always lots of hair. Her facial expressions were never challenging and often suggested helplessness and confusion. There was no attempt to suggest that Jill epitomised sex or was a suitable replacement for Marilyn Monroe - which Carroll Baker was doing at the time.
There was also talk about being a "kook", and then talk about not being a "kook" any longer. One press release during the early 1960s declared that Jill had 80 pairs of shoes, once kept an elephant as a pet, liked to play with porpoises and smoked 50 dollar pipes! Another press release announced that Jill liked to assemble electric train sets specially imported from Germany! The image presented was of good-natured, fun-loving, unambitious girl who would not mind being a big movie star.
The Sinatra connection seems to have brought her work, not only with Sinatra but also with his friends Dean Martin and Bob Hope, playing roles in keeping with her image of a gorgeous bimbo. Now she was much more forceful on screen, her face and performance memorable for weeks. (Her work in a Fox movie was forgotten within a day).
However, at a time when her
agent was obviously feeding
the world's press with her
photographs, she made very
few other movies, which
raises questions about how Hollywood viewed her. Clearly at
this point Jill was serious about her career, but she never
played a role that contradicted her public image and certainly
she never played a woman of abnormal intelligence. Nor did she
ever appear in a film that was not lightweight entertainment.
Was this her choice or was she only offered parts in keeping with her public image? Was Jill
St. John now a
prisoner of that image?
Jill also worked in England, in 1965 with Rod Taylor on "The Liquidator", an enjoyable film that seems to have disappeared and been forgotten, in 1971 in "Diamonds Are Forever", and in 1972 with Oliver Reed on "Sitting Target". Was this because Jill wanted to stretch herself or because nothing else was available in Hollywood? (At the time no-one raised these questions).
While in England Jill received considerable publicity. She gave several interviews and photographs of her appeared everywhere.
Until 1972 Jill was fairly busy but
thereafter she worked less
consistently and mainly in
television. She became more
famous for her private life, in
particular her marriage to Jack
Jones and her friendship with
Henry Kissinger. Her association
with Kissinger received enormous,
sustained publicity and there was
a revival of talk about her elevated
I. Q. Later Jill acquired an extra public image, as an authority on cooking.
Jill St. John is still working today, a remarkable achievement that no-one would have predicted in the days of her bimbo image.