La Clayburgh.
She was born a wealthy Upper East Sider, pale and plain next to the likes of her contemporaries Pam Grier, Goldie Hawn, and even Diane Keaton. She wasn’t an ass-kicking goddess or a funnyman’s muse. Still, I find myself unable to turn away from a vintage Jill Clayburgh movie. I wish I could simply point you to some authoritative film critic to explain her appeal. But until Cintra Wilson gets around to writing one of her laudatory essays on underappreciated actors about La Clayburgh, you’re going to have to make do with me.
You see, time was when Jill Clayburgh apparently couldn’t lose. In an era when white chicks were bustin’ out all over — Linda Ronstadt was demanding to know when she would be loved and Karen Durbin was writing about being a woman alone and Gloria Steinem was bringing the sexy to women’s lib — Jill Clayburgh somehow became an everywoman’s icon of intelligent independence in complicated circumstances. She was a pulmonary vein to the pop-culture heart of the 1970s in America. The first seasons of The Rockford Files and Saturday Night Live? Jill was there. Co-starring with Burt Reynolds, Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder, and Geraldine Page? BTDT. BFFs with Jennifer Salt and Meryl Streep? Jill covered her bases. Pacino’s girlfriend? Check — in his Godfather / Godfather II years, no less. And like many other things that seemed to run off the ramp at the exit for the 1980s — including Lennonesque political engagement, high-quality Ryan’s Hope episodes, flares, and Stevie Nicks’ intact septum — the only traces of Jill Clayburgh’s careening career after 1982 seem to be tire tracks and the faint whiff of burnt rubber.
Shame that. The dame has chops, if not the best taste in scripts recently, though she has guested on high-quality TV shows lately (including Nip/Tuck and Law & Order). A recent showing of It’s My Turn is waiting for me on the DVR — Jill’s caught between Charles Grodin and a young Michael Douglas! — but if you have time for only one Clayburgh movie, make it 1978’s An Unmarried Woman, for which she was nominated for an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA and won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival. It’s a time capsule of a tale: A woman dumped by her husband and regrouping in her giant New York City apartment with her teenage daughter and a sexy SoHo artist lover who threatens her delicate newfound freedom. The tagline is classic: “She laughs, she cries, she feels angry, she feels lonely, she feels guilty, she makes breakfast, she makes love, she makes do, she is strong, she is weak, she is brave, she is scared, she is… an unmarried woman.” Spritz on some Enjoli, drape yourself in an oversized “I Can’t Believe I Ate the Whole Thing!” t-shirt and bootie socks, pop up some Jiffy Pop popcorn, crash on your couch, and let Jill show you how she did it.