The 1970s are often misremembered as a halcyon period for women in American movies, and Jill Clayburgh, who died last week, is a big part of that. Of the three, Clayburgh was the most uncompromising. Though never nasty, like, say, Susan Anspach, she was a challenging screen figure who never played dumb and was never merely pleasing, even when playing opposite Burt Reynolds in the football comedy "Semi-Tough."
"An Unmarried Woman" was a Paul Mazursky film about an upper-middle-class Manhattan woman who thinks she has a happy marriage until her husband one day, out of nowhere, tearfully announces that he is leaving her for someone else. The rest of the film is about her rebuilding her life. I thought it was all right, except I didn't understand why Clayburgh didn't take her husband back near the end of the film when he came begging. For more than 40 years leading up to "An Unmarried Woman," women in movies took back their cheating husbands - not only willingly, but with enthusiasm and a grateful heart. Of course, Jill Clayburgh neither wrote nor directed "An Unmarried Woman." When I think of Clayburgh, I always go back to two scenes in that film. Helping men grow up
It's that scene that makes the news of Clayburgh's death feel a bit personal.
