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Jil Jarmyn Profile
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Photo gallery |
| (Donna Joyce Sellers) |
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| 8 October 26 | is born in Batavia, Illinois, to Clarence and Clara Sellers |
| 44 | graduates from Batavia High School |
| marries Franklyn Fanning Powell in La Jolla, California. He's about about 23; she's about 18. |
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| 45 | divorces Powell in Aurora, Illinois |
| ? | marries again |
| c. 49 | her daughter, Heidi Lynn, is born |
| ? | gets divorced |
| February 52 | as Jill Jarmon, she's heralded a 22-year-old singer doing her first major TV show, "The Colgate Comedy Hour," opposite Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis |
| Mid-December 53 | columnist Harrison Carroll expects her to marry legendary Speed Chandler early in 1954. Major Speed Chandler’s retired chief test pilot for the U.S. Air Force. |
| December 53 | the press suggests not to hold your breath waiting for Major Speed Chandler and her to do their announced knot-tying |
| February 54 | her escort at the Encore Room is Bob Brunson, who used to be engaged to Barbara Whiting |
| c. 55 | while on location for Swamp Women in Louisiana, she has to stay at a hotel infested with bedbugs. While wading through lily ponds, she cuts her foot on a Louisiana state safety deposit box. |
| c. May 55 | meets 43-year-old Don “Red” Barry while filming The Twinkle in God's Eye |
| ? | she and Barry become engaged |
| 4 November 55 | hits the news when she files an assault-and-battery complaint against actress Susan Hayward, claiming Susan beat her with a hairbrush in the bedroom of actor Don "Red" Barry. Jil claims that she walked into Barry's house at 11 a.m., unannounced, to find Susan, clad in polka-dot pajamas, in the bedroom of her ex-fiance. Jil screams, "Get that two-bit whore out of here!" Susan replies, "Who is this girl?" and attacks her with a wooden clothesbrush, tears the buttons off her blouse, and shoves her lighted cigarette at Jil, who falls backward over a couch and slams into a coffee table. "It infuriated me and I went toward her and a wrestling match ensued," Susan tells the officers. "I don't know who swung the first blow. I struck her and she struck me." A hearing is set for November 16. Susan describes the affair as "a tempest in a very small teapot." Jil, who has known Barry for five months and formerly dated him, just returned a few days ago from New Orleans. |
| says about her relationship to Barry: “We fell in love and were going to be married. Then we had a fight and called it off. Don went to work with Susan in I’ll Cry Tomorrow and he started dating her.” |
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| ? | dates Jess Barker, the ex of Susan Hayward. Incidentally, she and Jess have the same lawyer. |
| ? | hires Sammy Hahn to represent her in the assault-and-battery proceedings. Hahn is the lawyer of Susan's ex-husband, actor Jess Barker, who's fighting for custody of his twin sons. |
| 16 November 55 | says she won't seek a battery complaint against Hayward and will tell Van Nuys Deputy City Attorney Stephen R. Powers that she wants "to drop the whole thing." A hearing regarding the altercation is scheduled for November 18. "I've been through a humiliating experience; now I want to forget it," she says to reporters. "I don’t want to relive it again. Any further act on my part would only make matters worse and would only hurt the children." Barry appears at the City Attorney's office after her. He faces charges by a house painter of threatening the painter with a gun when he went to collect a $700, year-old paint bill. |
| ? | under pressure from studios protecting Susan Hayward, Jil eventually agrees to drop the charges |
| May 56 | is seen at the Sportsmen's Lodge with Jordan Friedman |
| September 56 | is given a publicity push by CBS-TV |
| November 56 | she and actor Donald Barry have another argument and don't see each other again |
| December 56 | the press notes that she has modified her name from Jill Jarmon to Jill Harman to Jill Jarmyn to Jil Jarmyn. "She plans no further change." |
| February 57 | seen at the Sportsmen's Lodge with director Dick Bare, estranged husband of Julie Van Zandt |
| September 57 | her 8-year-old daughter enters the Santa Monica Hospital to have a cyst removed from her throat |
| October 57 | is seen at the Luau with actor Hugh O'Brien |
| December 57 | her escort at the Sportsmen’s Lodge is Tom Lane |
| 58 | dates director H. Bruce Humberstone, who wants her for the part of Jane in his Tarzan’s Fight for Life, but the role goes to Eve Brent |
| January 58 | dates Booker McClay at the Sportsmen's Lodge |
| May 58 | director Humberstone is back with her at the Slate Brothers Club |
| May 59 | wanting to get onto Hollywood Boulevard from Barham Boulevard, she misses her turn and wheels through the open gate of Universal-International Studio, finding herself in the midst of a chariot race zipping down the Appian Way. The gate was open to admit camera trucks for the filming of Spartacus. |
| the press reports from a horse-drawn traffic jam in Hollywood: "Miss Jarmyn unwittingly followed camera trucks onto the set of an ancient Roman movie when a chariot race was in full gallop. John Gavin, portraying Julius Caesar, descended from the throne to lead her out." |
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| June 59 | is seen with actor James Craig at Dino's Lodge. Craig's wife Mary, who sued him for divorce three times during their 20-year marriage, went through with the latest action, and they got an interlocutory decree. |
| July 59 | is seen at the Cloister with fiancé James Craig |
| 22 August 59 | marries husband #4, actor James Craig, in Las Vegas. Jil's daughter, Heidi, is a junior bridesmaid. Afterwards the Craigs are off to Honolulu for a honeymoon. |
| 3 May 61 | her estranged husband is ordered to pay her $100 per month; she had asked for $805 per month. Craig also must return a car he took from her. He says he took away her car because she was using it to entertain men friends at a time when they were talking about reconciliation. Both are ordered to refrain from telephoning the other. He's 49; she's 35. |
| May 61 | Craig's 37-year-old ex-wife, Mary, attempts suicide by an overdose of sleeping pills in Los Angeles. She divorced Craig in 1959 after 20 years of marriage. |
| June 61 | she and Craig have a last minute change of mind and tell his lawyers to forget about the divorce |
| August 61 | reconciles with Craig, whom she has called "the worst of my four husbands" |
| is seen with James Craig at Dino’s listening to Kathy Hayes |
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| 14 October 61 | she and Craig separate for good |
| 3 February 62 | obtains an annulment of her marriage to Craig in Los Angeles on her testimony that he refused to have children. She testifies that by previous marriages she had one child and Craig three but that they agreed they should have children of their own. Then came separation after separation, the first only two months after their marriage. Each time they discussed the matter of children, Craig would not cooperate, she says. She's 35; he's 49. Craig will remarry his first wife, Jane Valentine. |
| June 62 | is seen at the Sportsmen’s Lodge with Sandy Whitelaw |
| December 65 | is among a troupe of show people entertaining more than 30,000 GIs, sailors, and airmen in Vietnam during their 18-day tour. The group is led by TV actress Kathy Nolan and includes Lois Roberts and musicians Frank Artino and Jody Daniel. |
| December 67 | columnist Lloyd Johnson tells: “Voluptuous Jill Jarmin, an auburn-tressed Hollywood beauty, who has starred in ten motion pictures and more than 80 television shows, is currently entertaining the San Francisco Playboy Club crowds, through December 9...” |
| May 70 | on her second Vietnam tour with Gary Vinson, she is pictured visiting the men of the 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry, at Fire Support Base Devins |
| 10 | as Jill Jarmin, she resides in Santa Paula, California |
| Sources: A Star Is A Star Is A Star. The Lives and Loves of Susan Hayward by Christopher P. Andersen, "Marie Windsor" in Monsters, Mutants and Heavenly Creatures by Tom Weaver, "Eve Brent" in Science Fiction Confidential by Tom Weaver, Movie Stars of the '40s by David Ragan, Pottstown Mercury, Van Nuys News, The Daily Gleaner, Ames Daily Tribune, The Lethbridge Herald, The Vidette-Messenger, The Lancaster Eagle-Gazette, Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, The Coshocton Tribune, The Port Arthur News, Nevada State Journal, Williamsport Sun-Gazette, Reno Evening Gazette, The Sheboygan Press, Oshkash Northwestern, Long Beach Independent, Pasadena Independent, Long Beach Press-Telegram, Motion Picture Guide, www.Ancestry.com | |
| Recommended Books: | |
| Links: Filmography | |