AR77

Sad to read that 1950s/60s leading lady, Jill Adams died in Portgual on 13th May, aged 77.

cully

That is sad. Lovely girl....I particularly remember her sexy performance in Doctor in Distress (1963).

RIP, Jill.

Jackdaw

That is sad news.
It seems only yesterday that she married Peter Haigh. (1957)

batman

RIP Jill.

Don't miss out on a chance to win a rare film in Bat-Quiz 13 closing date - 31/8/8.

dpgmel

Such sad news.

R I P Jill.

philips

An obituary from an on-line Portuguese newspaper.

vladpyre

A lovely lady, R.I.P Jill

EHV_Emmetts

R.I.P. Jill.

I was watching her in Brothers In Law a couple of nights ago. She was a beautiful lady.

David Brent

A very sad loss.

She was a real doll and a pure delight in all of her films.
She lit up the screen.

Dave.

Phil Turner

Yet another sad loss. A lovely actress and always a delight to watch. I remember her most fondly in Green For Danger. RIP

Regards
Phil Turner

Phil Turner

I meant to say The Green Man of course.

Regards
Phil Turner

smudge

Sad news indeed.

She was wonderful in THE GREEN MAN.

Respect,

Smudge

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

Harbottle

Very sad news, another who will remember Jill most for The Green Man.

mrs_emma_peel

So very sad.
Jill was an enchantingly beautiful actress - I loved her in The Green Man.
RIP Jill

Mrs Emma Peel

julian_craster

From The Times
July 30, 2008

Jill Adams: striking actress and a cover girl

Jill Adams was a striking actress and a cover girl whose life was as freewheeling as any screen role.

Born in 1930, she was daughter of Molly Adair, a silent-screen actress whose films included The Four Feathers (1921), its lavish staging owing much to Algiers location work; there she met New Zealand-born Arthur James Siggins (“Jim”) who had parlayed his way through Empire Africa, including the Rhodesian police, and, later wrote such gung-ho volumes as Man-Killers I Have Known (wild animals) and Shooting With Rifle and Camera (1931), which tells of his helping with the wildlife involved in The Four Feathers.

All a far cry from Hertfordshire, whence, with four children, the family moved to New Zealand for several years during the Thirties. On their return came some time in Wales, where Siggins himself issued such truculent works as Just Peace: The Rights of Every Man in a World Co-operative Commonwealth while Jill worked on a farm. Hankering for something else, she became a sales assistant in a shop, secretary and window dresser before taking up modelling (including a WRNS recruitment poster) — and in 1951 married American naval worker, Jim Adams.

They had a daughter, Tina, but within two years parted. Her stage work, including a late-night Anthony Newley revue On with the New (1953), brought uncredited film parts. The Black Knight (1954) with Peter Cushing and Alan Ladd, intended seriously, survives as an inadvertent Arthurian romp which prompted producer “Cubby” Broccoli to put other work her way. She had supporting roles in such English thrillers as One Jump Ahead (1954) and The Young Lovers (1954) and various television series. Sidney Gilliat’s The Constant Husband (1955), with Rex Harrison, marked a turn to comedy: that same year came both Doctor at Sea and a Northern farce Value for Money. Potentially interesting, but underpowered, was the crime tale One Way Out (1955). Best yet was the Boulting brothers’ Privates’ Progress (1956), soon followed by The Green Man — in which a bumbling clock speacialist (Alastair Sim) operates as a hired assassin — its ensemble playing then characteristic of English film.

Based on Sidney Gilliat’s and Frank Launder’s farce, it moves swiftly, with Jill Adams as the fiancée of a BBC announcer (Colin Gordon, later a Number Two in The Prisoner), who repeatedly insinuates that she is enjoying carnal relations with a vacuum-cleaner salesman (George Cole) when in fact they have simply chanced upon a plot to kill a philandering politician. Jill Adams herself married a BBC announcer, at an Isle of Wight registry office in April 1957: tall, suave Peter Haigh. They had a daughter, Louise, while Jill’s work included the dramas Scamp (1957), with Richard Attenborough, and Dust in the Sun (1958), set in Australia, as was the television drama series The Flying Doctor (1959) with Richard Denning. She appeared on stage, directed by Leslie Phillips, in Joseph Carole’s Roger the Sixth. Her film career was slowing down, but she was spirited in Carry on Constable (1960) and Doctor in Distress (1963). She also appeared in The Yellow Teddybears (1963) and The Comedy Man (1964), with Kenneth More, which depicted wing-and-a-prayer thespians.

Its timing was prescient. With television presentation mutating, Haigh fell from favour, extravagance catching up with him while Jill Adams’s last appearance was in Promise Her Anything (1965), a vehicle for Warren Beatty and Leslie Caron.

Come the early-Seventies, the family moved to Portugal to run a bar and hotel in then-stylish Albufeira. The marriage, however, did not survive, and they divorced in 1976. With Mike Johnson, Adams continued to run restaurants, and her cooking gained renown. After leaving that business she moved to various parts of Spain with Alan “Buster” Jones, who died in 1996. She returned to Portugal, and renewed an enthusiasm for art, with some emphasis on animals (she cherished her dogs). It is reproduced for sale in various forms.

Adams had been suffering from cancer. She is survived by her two daughters.

Jill Adams, actress, was born on July 22, 1930. She died on May 13, 2008, aged 77