---
name: "Jill Clayburgh"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/jill-clayburgh"
fi1m_id: "jill-clayburgh"
imdb_id: "nm0001049"
tmdb_id: 20362
wikidata_id: "Q230665"
roles: ["Actor"]
born: "30 April 1944"
died: "5 November 2010"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 5
average_fi1m_score: 75
average_as: "actor"
average_over: 5
updated: "2026-10-07T12:39:28.798850+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Jill Clayburgh

## Identity

Jill Clayburgh

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/jill-clayburgh
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** jill-clayburgh
- **IMDb ID:** nm0001049
- **TMDB ID:** 20362
- **Wikidata ID:** Q230665
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Clayburgh, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q230665, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001049/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/20362

Actor. Born 30 April 1944 in New York City, New York, USA. Died 5 November 2010.

## Details

- **Work:** Actor
- **Born:** 30 April 1944, New York City, New York, USA
- **Died:** 5 November 2010
- **Active:** 1974–2011
- **Also known as:** جیل کلایبورگ
- **Academy Awards:** 2 Oscar nominations
- **Average Fi1m score:** 75, as actor, over 5 titles
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 1970s 76 (3), 1990s 63 (1), 2010s 82 (1)
- **Score spread:** 3 at 80+, 2 at 60–79, 0 under 60
- **Lead roles:** 2 of 3 acting credits billed first or second
- **Genres:** Comedy 4, Drama 3, Romance 3, Crime 2, Action 1, Mystery 1
- **Screen time:** 6 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $363m across 3 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Clayburgh, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q230665, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001049/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/20362

## Streaming the US now

- **Disney+:** [*Bridesmaids*](https://film.one/film/bridesmaids.md) (82)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Jill Clayburgh

> Jill Clayburgh played clever, capable women at the moment the ground went from under them, and made the recovery look like work rather than a montage. For a few years in the late 1970s nobody in American film did it as well.

A husband cries on a Manhattan pavement and explains that he is leaving. His wife listens, walks a few yards, and is sick into a litter bin. That is Jill Clayburgh in *An Unmarried Woman* (1978), and it is the scene we still think about. We watched it with a hand over our mouth, and what did it was not the tears, which are his, but the walking: Erica sets off as if she can leave the news behind her, and her body disagrees. Clayburgh plays a woman who has been competent all her life and is suddenly sure of nothing, and she never once turns to the camera to ask for our sympathy. The voice helps. It is cracked and slightly wobbly, trained on stages, and it sounds like nobody else's.

The stage came first: summer stock, repertory in Boston, Broadway in *The Rothschilds* (1970) and *Pippin* (1972). Films from 1969 and a good deal of television filled the years before anyone paid much attention. *Silver Streak* (1976), opposite Gene Wilder, showed she could do the fast, dry comic timing the old screwball pictures ran on, and *Semi-Tough* (1977) confirmed it. Then Paul Mazursky gave her Erica, and for about three years she was the face American cinema reached for when it wanted a woman on her own: *Starting Over* (1979), and Caterina Silveri in Bernardo Bertolucci's *La Luna* (1979), a far harder part in a far stranger film.

What she did well was hold comedy and grief in the same scene without letting either one win. In *An Unmarried Woman* she is funny with her friends and wretched in her kitchen within the same reel, and the join does not show. What she did less well was size. Asked to be larger than life, as Carole Lombard in *Gable and Lombard* (1976), she looked like a real person who had wandered onto the wrong set. Her gift was for people you might actually meet, and Hollywood's idea of a star part is rarely one of those.

After the peak the offers thinned, and from the 1980s she worked mostly in television and the occasional film until 2010. Her last appearance, as Annie's mother in *Bridesmaids* (2011), came out after her death. Our review did not single her out, and that is fair: it is a small part in a film that belongs to Kristen Wiig. But she is unmistakably herself in it, dry and unhurried, a woman who has seen her daughter's trouble before and is not going to make a fuss.

She once complained that films did not show how interesting and vibrant women are, and that nobody treasures them as they get older. Her own filmography is the evidence for the prosecution. Start with *An Unmarried Woman*, and then notice how few films afterwards asked her to do anything like it again.

## Biography

Jill Clayburgh was an American actress. Born in New York City, she studied at Sarah Lawrence College and began her career on Broadway in the late 1960s, appearing in the original productions of the musicals *The Rothschilds* (1970) and *Pippin* (1972).

She received Academy Award nominations for Best Actress for her roles in *An Unmarried Woman* (1978) and *Starting Over* (1979), and won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for the former. Clayburgh appeared in films including *Silver Streak* (1976), *Running with Scissors* (2006) and *Love & Other Drugs* (2010), as well as television series such as *Nip/Tuck* and *Dirty Sexy Money*. Her final film role was as Annie's mother in *Bridesmaids* (2011). She died in 2010.

*Sources: imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org, masterworksbroadway.com.*

## On Fi1m (5)

- *Bridesmaids* (2011), Fi1m 82, as Annie's Mom — [page](https://film.one/film/bridesmaids.md)
- *Ally McBeal* (1997), Fi1m 63, as Jeannie McBeal — [page](https://film.one/tv/ally-mcbeal.md)
- *An Unmarried Woman* (1978), Fi1m 82, as Erica Benton — [page](https://film.one/film/an-unmarried-woman.md)
- *Silver Streak* (1976), Fi1m 63, as Hildegard 'Hilly' Burns — [page](https://film.one/film/silver-streak.md)
- *The Rockford Files* (1974), Fi1m 83, as Marilyn Polonski — [page](https://film.one/tv/the-rockford-files.md)

## Complete filmography (62)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Bridesmaids* (2011), as Annie's Mom — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/film/bridesmaids.md)
- *Love & Other Drugs* (2010), as Nancy Randall
- *Dirty Sexy Money* (2007), series, as Letitia Darling
- *Running with Scissors* (2006), as Agnes Finch
- *Phenomenon II* (2003), as Norma Malley
- *Nip/Tuck* (2003), series, as Bobbi Broderick — Fi1m 70, [page](https://film.one/tv/nip-tuck.md)
- *Leap of Faith* (2002), series, as Cricket Wardwell
- *Never Again* (2001), as Grace
- *My Little Assassin* (1999), as Alice Lorenz
- *Everything's Relative* (1999), series, as Mickey Gorelick
- *Trinity* (1998), series, as Eileen McCallister
- *Going All the Way* (1997), as Alma Burns
- *Ally McBeal* (1997), series, as Jeannie McBeal — Fi1m 63, [page](https://film.one/tv/ally-mcbeal.md)
- *Sins of the Mind* (1997), as Eve
- *When Innocence Is Lost* (1997), as Susan French
- *The Practice* (1997), series, as Victoria Stewart
- *Fools Rush In* (1997), as Nan
- *Crowned and Dangerous* (1997), as Cathy Stevens
- *The Face on the Milk Carton* (1995), as Miranda Jessmon
- *For the Love of Nancy* (1994), as Sally Walsh
- *Honor Thy Father and Mother: The True Story of the Menendez Murders* (1994), as Kitty Menendez
- *Naked in New York* (1993), as Shirley
- *Frasier* (1993), series, as Marie (voice) — Fi1m 88, [page](https://film.one/tv/frasier.md)
- *Firestorm: 72 Hours in Oakland* (1993), as Anneliese Osborn
- *Lincoln* (1992), as Emilie Todd Helm (voice)
- *The Big Pardon 2* (1992), as Sally White
- *Rich in Love* (1992), as Helen Odom
- *Whispers in the Dark* (1992), as Sarah Green
- *Trial: The Price of Passion* (1992), as Judge Louise Parker
- *Reason for Living: The Jill Ireland Story* (1991), as Jill Ireland
- *Law & Order* (1990), series, as Sheila Atkins — Fi1m 72, [page](https://film.one/tv/law-and-order.md)
- *Beyond the Ocean* (1990), as Ellen
- *Unspeakable Acts* (1990), as Laurie Braga
- *Fear Stalk* (1989), as Alexandra Maynard
- *Who Gets the Friends?* (1988), as Vikki Baron
- *Shy People* (1987), as Diana
- *Where are the Children?* (1986), as Nancy Holder Eldridge
- *Miles to Go…* (1986), as Moira Browning
- *Hanna K.* (1983), as Hanna Kaufman
- *I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can* (1982), as Barbara Gordon
- *First Monday in October* (1981), as Ruth Loomis
- *It's My Turn* (1980), as Dr. Katherine "Kate" Gunzinger
- *Starting Over* (1979), as Marilyn Holmburg
- *Luna* (1979), as Caterina Silveri
- *An Unmarried Woman* (1978), as Erica Benton — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/film/an-unmarried-woman.md)
- *Semi-Tough* (1977), as Barbara Jane Bookman
- *Silver Streak* (1976), as Hildegard 'Hilly' Burns — Fi1m 63, [page](https://film.one/film/silver-streak.md)
- *Griffin and Phoenix* (1976), as Sarah Phoenix
- *Gable and Lombard* (1976), as Carole Lombard
- *The Art of Crime* (1975), as Dany
- *Hustling* (1975), as Wanda
- *The Rockford Files* (1974), series, as Marilyn Polonski — Fi1m 83, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-rockford-files.md)
- *The Terminal Man* (1974), as Angela Black
- *Shock-A-Bye Baby* (1973), Actor
- *The Thief Who Came to Dinner* (1973), as Jackie Johnson
- *The Female Instinct* (1972), as Mary Nero
- *Maude* (1972), series, as Adele
- *Portnoy's Complaint* (1972), as Naomi
- *The Telephone Book* (1971), as Eyemask
- *Medical Center* (1969), series, as Beverly Welton
- *The Wedding Party* (1969), as Josephine
- *Search for Tomorrow* (1951), series, Actor

## Gallery

- ![Beverly Hope Atkinson, Lee Ramick and Jill Clayburgh in the television movie Hustling (1975)](https://film.one/media/person/119903/gallery-dc39dba48af9.jpg) Beverly Hope Atkinson, Lee Ramick and Jill Clayburgh in the television movie Hustling (1975) — ABC, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Beverly_Hope_Atkinson%2C_Lee_Ramick_and_Jill_Clayburgh_in_Hustling_%281975%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Beverly Hope Atkinson, Lee Ramick and Jill Clayburgh in the television movie Hustling (1975)](https://film.one/media/person/119903/gallery-8612c311f5dc.jpg) Beverly Hope Atkinson, Lee Ramick and Jill Clayburgh in the television movie Hustling (1975) — ABC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/86/Beverly_Hope_Atkinson%2C_Lee_Ramick_and_Jill_Clayburgh_in_Hustling_%28front_and_back%2C_1975%29.jpg/1280px-Beverly_Hope_Atkinson%2C_Lee_Ramick_and_Jill_Clayburgh_in_Hustling_%28front_and_back%2C_1975%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![James Earl Jones plays title role and Jill Clayburgh is Desdemona in Shakespeare's Othello at the Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles (1971)](https://film.one/media/person/119903/gallery-4dc21654d21b.jpg) James Earl Jones plays title role and Jill Clayburgh is Desdemona in Shakespeare's Othello at the Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles (1971) — Kathleen Ballard, Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/James_Earl_Jones_and_Jill_Clayburgh_in_Othello.jpg/1280px-James_Earl_Jones_and_Jill_Clayburgh_in_Othello.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![jill clayburgh (1983)](https://film.one/media/person/119903/gallery-c070267b2db8.jpg) jill clayburgh (1983) — Gorup de Besanez, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6e/Jill_Clayburgh%2C_1983_Venice_Film_Festival.jpg/1280px-Jill_Clayburgh%2C_1983_Venice_Film_Festival.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Jill Clayburgh](https://film.one/media/person/119903/gallery-9f153cdd5ed7.jpg) Jill Clayburgh — Image via TMDB
- ![Jill Clayburgh](https://film.one/media/person/119903/gallery-17e23d8420f2.jpg) Jill Clayburgh — Image via TMDB
- ![Jill Clayburgh](https://film.one/media/person/119903/gallery-7d8c243d5f4f.jpg) Jill Clayburgh — Image via TMDB
- ![Jill Clayburgh](https://film.one/media/person/119903/gallery-bbccdc54236b.jpg) Jill Clayburgh — ABC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Jill_Clayburgh.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Jill Clayburgh](https://film.one/media/person/119903/gallery-f12ef9c793d3.jpg) Jill Clayburgh — Image via TMDB
- ![Jill Clayburgh](https://film.one/media/person/119903/gallery-eb870c918c21.jpg) Jill Clayburgh — Image via TMDB

## Awards

### Academy Awards — 0 won, 2 nominated

- 1980: Best Actress (nominated), for *Starting Over*
- 1979: Best Actress (nominated), for *An Unmarried Woman*

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/jill-clayburgh