Ann Jillian | Ann Jillian Photos | Ann Jillian Bio | Wind Beneath My Wings | Is the Movie the Fourth Kind a True Story | Ann Jillian Actress

Ann Jillian | Ann Jillian Photos | Ann Jillian Bio | Wind Beneath My Wings | Is the Movie the Fourth Kind a True Story | Ann Jillian Actress

Ann-Jillian

Ann Jillian born on January 29, 1950 in Cambridge, Massachusetts,her parents are Roman Catholic Lithuanian immigrant,she can speaks Lithuanian fluently, is an American actress, who started acting at age 10. Her career reached its zenith in the 1980s, with her best-known role being that of waitress Cassie Cranston on the sitcom It’s a Living.

Jillian has been acting since 1960 when she played Little Bo Peep in the Disney film Babes In Toyland. She appeared as Dainty June in the Rosalind Russell-Natalie Wood 1962 movie version of Gypsy. She had several television appearances in the 1960s and 1970s, notably becoming a regular on the 1960s sitcom Hazel and appearing in The Twilight Zone episode “Mute” as the mute telepathic Ilse Nielson in 1963. She also did voice acting, for Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! and Sealab 2020 in the early 1970s, but—told she was too tall to play youthful roles of the day and too young to play a leading lady—there was no more work for her in Hollywood.

Jillian married Andy Murcia, a Chicago police sergeant, in 1977 and shortly thereafter Murcia retired to manage his wife’s career.Earlier in her career she had been managed by Joyce Selznick.

In the late 1970s she toured in musical comedies including Sammy Cahn’s Words and Music. She was picked from that production to appear in the original company of Sugar Babies on Broadway with Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller in 1979.

Jillian was nominated for a lead actress Emmy and Golden Globe for her performance.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer and she became a vocal advocate for cancer research and prevention. Leaving It’s a Living after the 1985-1986 season, she focused on beating her cancer, with treatment including a double mastectomy. Her battle with the disease was chronicled in the top-rated 1988 made-for-TV film, The Ann Jillian Story, in which Jillian portrayed herself. Jillian received her third Emmy Award nomination, for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Special, and won a 1989 Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV.

The following year she starred in a series entitled, simply, Ann Jillian. The show aired 13 episodes in the 1989-1990 season.

Bob Hope selected her to appear in six of his TV specials, including two entertaining U.S. troops stationed in Beirut (1984) and Saudi Arabia (1991). She displayed her athletic abilities on three Battle of the Network Stars specials and a Circus of the Stars special and appeared in the charity extravaganza Night of 100 Stars. She guest starred in TV specials for Don Rickles (1986) and David Copperfield (1987) and was on the dais at the Dean Martin Celebrity Roast for Mr. T (1984).

Jillian had a son, Andrew Joseph, in 1992. She has continued to act, with ten TV movie roles throughout the 1990s, though her TV and film credits have been sporadic since the late 1990s, as she decided to devote herself to raising her son and to promoting breast cancer issues. Today, she mostly works as a motivational speaker and also performs as a singer in corporate and symphony “pops” circles. She is an occasional guest columnist for the website TheColumnists.com. The family resides in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles.


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