Top TV Moments: Ann Jillian

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Show business, like life, isn’t always fair. But usually those with ample talent and work ethic will find an opportunity to achieve success.

Certainly that was the case with Ann Jillian, who worked steadily as a child star and an adult, both on television and the concert stage. Her name will certainly be familiar to readers of this blog, possibly a bit more so for those who were young men in the 1980s and fondly recall her striking platinum bob hairstyle, alabaster skin and voluptuous figure. That image plus her sassy way with a comedy line earned comparisons to Jean Harlow.

But I’ve always thought Jillian still deserved more than she got from a career beset by bad luck and bad timing. The series that put her on the map was snakebit from the start, and subsequent attempts found her desperately trying to elevate uninspired material. Then at the height of her success she had to cope with a cancer diagnosis and never got back on track.

It’s a Living (1980)
This was Ann Jillian’s breakthrough moment, though she appeared in less than half of the show’s 120 episodes. Susan Sullivan was top-billed, but Jillian’s blunt and brassy Cassie Cranston got all the best lines right from the pilot.



For a breezy sitcom about five waitresses working in a Los Angeles hotel restaurant, It’s a Living had a bizarre history. The first season was shortened by a Screen Actors Guild strike. A second-season title change (to Making a Living) and cast changes (Susan Sullivan and Wendy Schaal out, Louise Lasser in) still resulted in cancellation by ABC. But the show returned three years later in syndication, under its original title, with more cast changes (hello, Crystal Bernard!). Jillian was there for the first year of the second run, then had to leave to get treatment for cancer.

Every time the waitress lineup changed, the series reshot its opening sequence of the ladies walking arm-in-arm toward the Westin Bonaventure Hotel. Poor Barrie Youngfellow took that walk so many times she probably still has flashbacks.



And as befits the Jillian bad luck, the series is not and likely never will be on DVD because every episode featured songs played in the restaurant’s piano bar, all of which would have to be cleared at significant cost.

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I've come to the conclusion that from script writer’s and producer’s point of view, one can easily suspect that back in the '80s, a breast cancer survivor/victim like Ann Jillian was to them, looked at as damaged goods. Ann was a sex symbol type actress who was the breakout star on what was essentially a "jiggle show" in It's a Living. And if you've ever seen Ann Jillian in the movie Mr. Mom with Michael Keaton, it also tried to emphasize that notion.

As harsh as it sounds, when It's a Living was brought back for syndication in 1985, Ann really no longer looked or was really written like the character that she was initially hired to play (i.e. brassy, sharp-tongued, man-hungry woman). Sure, she still had the platinum blonde, bob hairstyle but she had quite noticeably put on weight.