Actress Jill Clayburgh Dead at Age 66

She was a fine actress, an A-lister in the late ’70′s known for serious, proto-feminist roles. She’d suffered for years from leukemia. None of the obits mention that she played Jill Ireland opposite Lance Henrickson’s Charles Bronson in REASON FOR LIVING: THE JILL IRELAND STORY in 1991.

From THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:

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. Clayburgh moved between theater, film roles and TV, most recently as part of the cast of “Dirty Sexy Money.” She was married for many years to the playwright David Rabe, who survives her.

And HERE is a nice overview of her career from the IMDB