Misplaced Pages

Jill Schary Robinson
Robinson in 1979
Born	(1936-05-30)May 30, 1936 Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Died	July 20, 2024(2024-07-20) (aged 88) Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Occupation	Novelist poet essayist
Period	1963–2024
Genre	Fiction, memoir
Subject	Social justice, feminism, Hollywood
Notable works	With a Cast of Thousands Perdido Bed/Time/Story
Spouse	Jon Courrier Zimmer ​(divorced)​ Jeremiah "Laurence" Robinson ​ ​(divorced)​ Stuart Shaw
Children	2, including Jeremy Zimmer
Parents	Dore Schary
Website
jillscharyrobinson.com

Jill Schary Robinson (May 30, 1936 – July 20, 2024) was an American novelist, essayist, and teacher. Based in Los Angeles, her memoirs contended with the themes of addiction, recovery, and growing up during the golden age of Hollywood.

Early life

Schary Robinson was born in Los Angeles on May 30, 1936, to a Jewish family, the daughter of Dore Schary, the Oscar and Tony Award-winning writer, producer, and head of MGM and Miriam Svet, a painter. In 1956, she married Jon Courrier Zimmer, then a lieutenant in the United States Naval Reserve, in a Jewish ceremony in Beverly Hills.

Writing career

As a copywriter for the advertising agency FCB, Robinson trained with Helen Gurley Brown. Robinson also wrote on women's issues for Cosmopolitan and covered political trials for the SoHo Weekly News. Her first memoir, With a Cast of Thousands, is about her experiences growing up among celebrities such as Jane Fonda, Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor, and Adlai Stevenson. She also interviewed political and film personalities on KPFK and KLAC.

Robinson's 1974 acclaimed memoir about drug addiction, Bed/Time/Story, was turned into a television movie called A Cry For Love. She reviewed books and wrote articles for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Vanity Fair, Washington Post, and American and French Vogue.

During the 1980s, Robinson relocated to London and wrote a series of columns on being an American in Britain for London's Daily Telegraph. Her Vanity Fair story on Roman Polanski was included in George Plimpton’s book The Best American Movie Writing for 1998.

In 1999 author Jonathan Lethem described 1999's Past Forgetting as a "quietly moving memoir recounting that great rarity, a truly encompassing and persistent loss of memory." Robinson and her husband Stuart Shaw also performed on cruise ships, reading their play Falling in Love When You Thought You Were Through (adapted from their memoir, published in 2002).

In 2005, Robinson was given a lifetime grant to develop the non-profit Wimpole Street Writers program, which continues both in London and Los Angeles.

In 2009, she was instrumental in saving the Motion Picture and Television Fund's retirement home.

Death

Robinson died at her home in Beverly Hills, California, on July 20, 2024, at the age of 88.

Works

Robinson's major published works are:

• With a Cast of Thousands, 1963
• Thanks for the Rubies, Now Please Pass the Moon, 1972
• Bed/Time/Story, 1974
• Perdido, 1978
• Dr. Rocksinger and the Age of Longing, 1982
• Follow Me Through Paris, 1983
• Star Country, 1998
• Past Forgetting, 1999
• Falling in Love When you Thought You Were Through, 2002

References

1. Carlson, Michael (August 15, 2024). "Jill Robinson obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved August 16, 2024.
2. ^ "Jill Robinson". HuffPost. Retrieved March 22, 2016.
3. Schary Robinson, Jill (June 1, 2016). "About Eighty". jillscharyrobinson.com. I think of myself as a writer, a grandmother who makes art for the grandchildren. As a woman, a Jew? Depends—not always any of these, but a jazz band perhaps, each part of myself knowing its own score, and where to come in, and when.
4. Kessler, Judy (January 13, 1975). "The Reformed Family Robinson: a Sordid Life Becomes An Open Book". People.
5. "Jill Schary and Jon Zimmer get married 1956". Los Angeles Times. January 9, 1956. p. 75.
6. Robinson, Jill (2000). Past Forgetting: My Memory Lost and Found. HarperCollins / Cliff Street Books. ISBN 0-06-019430-8.
7. Zimmer, Jill Schary (1963). With A Cast Of Thousands: A Hollywood Childhood. Stein and Day.
8. "Robinson, Jill 1936–". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved March 22, 2016.
9. Gottlieb, Annie (October 27, 1974). "Discovery of Love". The New York Times.
10. "A Cry For Love (1980)". IMDb. October 20, 1980. Retrieved March 22, 2016.
11. Robinson, Jill (October 6, 1990). "An Inconvenient Woman". The New York Times.
12. Robinson, Jill (March 29, 2009). "The End of the 'Motion Picture Home'". Los Angeles Times.
13. Robinson, Jill (April 1997). "Polanski's Inferno". Archived from the original on April 7, 2016.
14. Lethem, Jonathan (October 22, 1999). ""Past Forgetting: My Memory Lost and Found" by Jill Robinson". Retrieved March 22, 2016.
15. "Wimpole Street Writers". Retrieved March 22, 2016.
16. "Hospital For Hollywood's Elderly Set To Close". NPR. August 11, 2009.
17. Hayes, Dade (July 22, 2024). "Jill Schary Robinson Dies: Journalist And Author Who Was Mother Of UTA CEO Jeremy Zimmer, Daughter Of MGM Production Chief Was 88". Deadline. Retrieved July 22, 2024.
18. Barnes, Mike (July 22, 2024). "Jill Schary Robinson, Author and Mother of UTA CEO Jeremy Zimmer, Dies at 88". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved July 22, 2024.

External links

• Official website

• 1936 births
• 2024 deaths
• Novelists from Los Angeles
• Jewish American novelists
• American women novelists
• American women essayists
• 20th-century American novelists
• 21st-century American novelists
• 20th-century American women writers
• 21st-century American women writers
• 20th-century American essayists
• 21st-century American essayists
• 21st-century American Jews
• SoHo Weekly News people