Jill Clayburgh

Years and years ago I was in bed flipping television channels. I had cable and my most favorite thing in the world was to watch TCM. I would just about watch anything on that channel even if it was in mid-movie, didn't matter. One evening I caught Jill Clayburgh dancing around a room wearing panties, a tiny tee and knee high socks. After I cycled through a few sitcoms and home improvement shows I found myself again with Jill Clayburgh, this time she was throwing up in the street with loud, heavy sax music blaring. I watched for a while and though I was intrigued, I couldn't get into this film. I turned the television off and read. I turned the television back on later and there was Jill Clayburgh again but this time eating eggs with Alan Bates and sharing the scene with a giant painting. It had been a while and I didn't know that this was even the same film. I decided to keep watching but fell asleep and woke up to the next movie.


That weekend I visited my friend Mr Gage who was talking about watching a film earlier that week that featured the artwork of an old classmate of his from the Art Students League of New York. He said it starred Jill Clayburgh. I told him I saw parts of that film and it seemed odd but I did remember the giant painting. Mr Gage said that was Paul Jenkins who did the art work for the film and they were both taught by Yasuo Kuniyoshi. He then showed me a photo he had of Kuniyoshi. We went through his old Art Students League catalogs that afternoon.

The mysterious Jill Clayburgh film was called An Unmarried Woman and we watched it from the beginning yesterday. Aside from all the dramatic overuse of saxophone in the soundtrack, there was nothing really odd about the film. I wondered why I had found it so difficult to jump into it all those years ago. The movie seemed to reference The Women a few times but An Unamarried Woman is truly a film of the 70s women's movement. I noticed that one of the actresses in the film was a very young Kelly Bishop of Gilmore Girls and Ultra Violet even had a small cameo. I also realized the reason Jill Clayburgh runs around in those knee high socks is because she wears boots through most of the movie.