Jill Banner(1946-1982)
- Actress
Jill Banner's early life was somewhat nomadic. Her father died when she
was 2, and her mother moved from Washington to South Dakota and Iowa
before settling in Glendale, California. Jill attended the Hollywood
Professional School (one of her classmates was
Peggy Lipton). Her debut film,
Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told (1967),
was shot in 1964 but not released until 1968. When the film finally
came out she received rave reviews for her performance as one of a pair
of crazed sisters in this dark tale of cannibalism and incest. Between
the shooting of the film and its release, Banner did a few films and
much TV work. She was regularly used by producer/director
Jack Webb in his police shows
Dragnet 1967 (1967) and
Adam-12 (1968), often playing a
blissed-out hippie. In the 1970s she soured on the Hollywood life and
moved to New Mexico, where she sold real estate. After a few years,
though, she returned to California to try to resume her career. On
August 7, 1982, she was driving on the Ventura Freeway, between the
Tujunga and Laurel Canyon Blvd. off-ramps, when her car was hit by a
truck whose driver was drunk. Not wearing a seat belt, she was ejected
from the car and hit her head on the center divider. She went into a
coma, and died at a local hospital, never having come out of it. At the
time of her death she was employed by
Marlon Brando and was developing scripts
for him.
