The Short Life of Jill Banner

The actor Jill Banner is iconic because of her role in the cult classic Spider Baby but also because of her tragic death at 35 years old. You can find quotes about her below.

“Jill Banner” sounds like a fake name and it is. She was born Mary Kathryn Molumby on 8 November 1946 in Bremerton, Washington to parents Raymond Molumby (18 August 1888) and Muriel Molumby (27 November 1919), nee Bergheim.

Jill’s father had three sons from a previous marriage but it doesn’t appear that she had any real interactions with these half-brothers.

Her father died when she was just 2 years old. After that her mother moved around a lot, apparently to live with relatives. However, since her father is buried in South Dakota, it is likely the move there was before he died.

By 1961, at the age of 15, she was attending Hollywood Professional School — a private K-12 school for child performers. At 17, she met and became close friends with Peggy Lipton, who would go on to star in The Mod Squad and marry Quincy Jones.

Her first big break came in 1964 when she auditioned for Spider Baby. Writer-director Jack Hill said of it, “We just chatted with her and she admitted she hadn’t had any experience. But she said, ‘I’m a lot of fun to have around.’ And the way she said that, all of us in the room suddenly felt that this strange girl was just right for the picture.”

Sadly, although the film was all but done by the end of 1964, the financial backers went bankrupt. This delayed the film’s release by three years. By that time, she had sever on-screen credits to her name, mostly on TV. After its release, she continued to work steadily, entirely in TV and usually cast as a young hippy.

In 1968, Banner met Marlon Brando when he was working on Candy (1968). They seem to have stayed together until 1976. She has no film credits for the last 4 years of this period. They were going to get married but had a fight and Banner moved to New Mexico to work in real estate.

In 1980, Jill Banner returned to Los Angeles. Just two years later, on 7 August 1982, she was driving on the Ventura Freeway (Hwy 101). A drunk driver in a truck hit her. She was thrown from her Toyota experiencing intense head trauma. She was in a coma and soon died at the Riverside Hospital in North Hollywood.

Jill Banner Filmography

I’ve watched everything I can find that features Jill Banner. Here is a full list of her TV/film credits with details about her roles.

1. 24 January 1966: The John Forsythe Show Season 1 Episode 19 “If Food Be the Music of Love” — She plays Marcia. I haven’t managed to find a copy of this. Elsa Lanchester and Ann B Davis were part of the regular cast.
2. 4 February 1966: Weekend of Fear — She plays Carol, the main character’s boyfriend’s ex in this micrro-budget thriller. She exists mostly to allow the villain to explain her evil plan. The film stars Mikki Malone, who is credited with a number of porn films in the 1990s although I would assume those were not sex roles given her age.
3. 12 February 1967: Deadlier Than the Male — She plays Pam in an uncredited role in this spy thriller. I haven’t been able to find her in the released film. In an 8-minute sequence that was cut from the final film, Pam is a model who Robert mistakes for a spy. It’s a rather good scene. Elke Sommer is also featured in the film.
4. 2 March 1967: Dragnet Season 1 Episode 7 “The Hammer” — She plays Camille Gearhardt, a bad girl with criminal tendencies who hooked up with the wrong guy and ends up in prison for accessory to murder. She gets to deliver a great line, “You got nice eyes… for a cop!”
5. 3 May 1967: C’mon, Let’s Live a Little — She plays Wendy in this Bobby Vee vehicle. There are three young dark-haired women who act as a kind of single character. Banner does most of the talking for them. The singer Kim Carnes is featured in this film.
6. 17 August 1967: The Stranger Returns — She plays Caroline, the daughter of the town’s double-dealing postmaster in this excellent spaghetti western. The character exists mostly to be used as a pawn but she does get a great moment with a slap.
7. 21 December 1967: The President’s Analyst — She plays Snow White, a hippy who James Coburn hooks up with while on the run from the feds. The film also features William Daniels and Arte Johnson in small roles.
8. 24 December 1967: Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told — She plays Virginia, one of the two insane Merrye children. She is obsessed with spiders. The film also features Lon Chaney Jr, Carol Ohmart, and Sid Haig.
9. 5 March 1968: Shadow Over Elveron — She plays Jessie Drover, the pregnant daughter of corrupt Sheriff Verne Drover (Leslie Nielsen) who is forcing her to have an abortion. This TV movie also stars James Franciscus and Don Ameche.
10. 9 January 1969: Dragnet Season 3 Episode 14 “Homicide: DR-22” — She plays Eve Stewart Wesson, a heroin addict and prostitute. She delivers a ton of exposition very much in the style of the show. Burt Mustin co-stars.
11. 20 March 1969: Dragnet Season 3 Episode 23 “Forgery: DR-33” — She plays Sondra Kay Thompson, a sympathetic check forger. It’s a tiny role.
12. 25 September 1969: Dragnet Season 4 Episode 2 “Homicide: The Student” — She plays Nancy Morton, a college student who knows an unstable murderer. This is another part with a lot of exposition and little else.
13. 13 November 1969: Dragnet Season 4 Episode 8 “DHQ: Missing Person” — She plays Shirley Lawson, a young woman with a split-personality. Her “older sister” wears a blond wig, so it’s fun to see that. This is the best of her Dragnet roles.
14. 12 March 1970: Hunters Are for Killing — She plays Holly Fornell, the young hippy daughter of the cafe owner. She seems to exist entirely to establish Burt Reynolds as a good guy who doesn’t sleep with the gorgeous young woman who throws herself at him. But it’s hard to say since I’ve only seen this TV movie in German. It also features Martin Balsam, Melvyn Douglas, Suzanne Pleshette, and Larry Storch.
15. 20 March 1970: The Name of the Game Season 2 Episode 23 “Echo of a Nightmare” — She plays Vivi Sue. I have not been able to see a copy to know more. The episode features guest stars Hoagy Carmichael, Arthur Hill, and Ricardo Montalban.
16. 15 October 1970: Ironside Season 4 Episode 4 “Noel’s Gonna Fly” — She plays Judy Blue, a hippy girl who Noel interacts with after he runs away. It’s a bigger role than normal for her, featured in 3 locations. Lorraine Gary guest stars.
17. 4 December 1970: The Name of the Game Season 3 Episode 12 “Why I Blew Up Dakota” — She plays Ginger Schermer, a “stewardess” who is the alibi for an artist accused of murder. This episode has a guest cast including Jose Ferrer, Carolyn Jones, Roddy McDowall, and Paul Stewart.
18. 30 January 1972: Cade’s County Season 1 Episode 16 “Slay Ride: Part 1” — She plays Melanie, a young woman at a Native American commune. She exists to provide some exposition about the murdered woman. The show is actually pretty good; too bad it didn’t take off. The episode features character actor John Schuck and Academy Award-winning producer Tony Bill.
19. 2 February 1972: Adam-12 Season 4 Episode “The Adoption” — She plays Rita, a young woman who agreed to give up her baby for cash who has had second thoughts. She says at the end of the episode, “I’m keeping my baby” — 14 years before Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach.” Jackie Coogan is featured in a subplot about a college football team giving performance-enhancing drugs to the students.
20. 6 February 1972: Cade’s County Season 1 Episode 17 “Slay Ride: Part 2” — She is credited as Melanie, but doesn’t seem to have been in this episode.
21. 5 March 1972: The Bold Ones: The New Doctors Season 3 Episode 11 “Discovery at Fourteen” — She plays “Curlish Girl.” I haven’t found the episode online. But I’ve found enough to know that Ron Howard plays a young man who is afraid he is gay. Given her character’s name, I assume this isn’t much of a part. The show had a great cast including EG Marshall, John Saxon, and Robert Walden.

Quotes From People Who Knew Her

I’ve done a lot of research to get a handle on Jill Banner. Here are notable quotes from the books.

Jack Hill

Writer and director Jack Hill was interviewed in The Hatching of Spider Baby and this is what he said about Jill Banner:

I don’t know how we found out about Jill Banner [for Spider Baby]. Somebody must have told us about her. She just came into the office for an interview and I’m sure she wasn’t expecting to get any kind of a leading role. We just chatted with her and she admitted she hadn’t had any experience. But she said, “I’m a lot of fun to have around.” And the way she said that, all of us in the room suddenly felt that this strange girl was just right for the picture. She just had this kind of presence.

It wasn’t until not too many years ago I had been trying to locate Jill Banner. I had a phone number on her, and I had no idea that she had died. And I learned that she had died in a terrible, terrible automobile accident on the Pacific Coast Highway. She was at that time living with Marlon Brando and, in fact, working on a screenplay with him. And I also heard from Jill’s manager that Brando that told someone that Jill was the only woman he had ever really loved. At her funeral, he remained long after everybody else had left — standing over her grave. So it must have been quite a relationship. And she was quite a remarkable girl, so I could understand very much why Brando would be fascinated by her.

Everett Greenbaum

Writer Everett Greenbaum (co-writer of The Ghost and Mr Chicken) is quoted about Banner in Brando: The Unauthorized Biography by Charles Higham:

He also had an affair with an ill-fated woman named Jill Banner. A tiny, appealing former actress who talked in a low-pitched sexy, drawling comic voice like Mae West, she eternally fascinated Marlon. According to Marlon and Wally Cox’s old friend Everett Greenbaum, Marlon was fiercely possessive of this intriguing girl. “I used to take Jill for rides in my airplane,” Greenbaum recalled. “Every time Jill went flying with me, Marlon got furious. They had a fight and then made up. Marlon bought her a golden apple made of solid gold studded with emeralds, rubies, and diamonds. She wore it around her neck. Then they went to some island in Hawaii, and Marlon had an argument with her on the beach and he yanked the apple off and threw it away in the ocean.”

Greenbaum added, “Jill was killed in a terrible car crash. I was at the funeral. I didn’t see Marlon. But I heard afterward he was hiding in the trees next to the burial ground.” Fearful of the attentions of the press, Marlon, as at Wally Cox’s funeral, didn’t want to be seen even by the other mourners.

Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando is probably not the most trustworthy source for information about Banner — or anything, really. The entirety of Songs My Mother Taught Me come across very much like Ernest Hemingway in A Moveable Feast — as a man who, despite all his successes is still trying to prove that he’s a real man. But he dedicates two chapters to Jill Banner, who he refers to as Weonna. Please note that many things he says are factually wrong like her hair and eye color (brunette and blue) and her mother being from Ireland (she was born in South Dakota).

Although I let some women believe I loved them — and in some cases I may have meant it at the time — there was one woman I loved more than any other.

I was in my early forties when I met Weonna in Rome. She had a part in Candy and was with a friend of mine. He and I had the same rivalry I’d had with Carlo Fiore; we both tried to seduce each other’s girl. After he introduced me to Weonna in a hotel lobby, he went off and i put it to her succinctly.

“Why don’t we go upstairs and fuck?” She answered, “Why not? Let’s go!”

That was the beginning and the end of the seduction.

Weonna was born only about a hundred miles away from my birthplace. She had written a little, done some acting, modeled for a while, made some money in real estate. She was an extraordinary piece of construction, with white skin, soft natural blonde hair, freckles, a lot of moles, green eyes, and a voice with the slightest hint of an Irish accent, a hand me down from her mother who was from Ireland. She made me laugh harder than any woman I’ve ever known. She was quick to understand and laughed at me a lot, too. Like my mother and grandmother, she had a sense of the absurd, thought the outrageous, and impose no limits on her imagination. She was amusing, witty, intelligent, eccentric. But she was also troubled. She distrusted people, drank too much, and occasionally used drugs — not hard drugs, but pills. It was spasmodic; she would use them awhile, then swear off them, be clean for a while, then start again, and I’d have to take her to a hospital because it was the only place where she could stop. Still, we had a lot of fun together, and even now I often laugh at what we laughed at then.

Note that Jill had brunette hair and blue eyes.

After this, he tells a story about stealing some pipes with Banner along where she refuses to lie to the police for him. He notes, “I thought her disloyalty unbecoming.”

In the next chapter, he talks about Jill’s jealousy and describes a couple of (undoubtedly rare) examples of where he was innocent. Then he gives his side of how they broke up, which is flat-out contradicted by Brando’s assistant.

For several years I saw Weonna off and on and we loved a lot and fought a lot. She was a tough woman and gave as good as she got. She had an unerring sense of how to prick my insecurities and jealousies, and we had ferocious fights. I suppose neither of us was willing or able to change our ways. At our last meeting we stood toe-to-toe and really destroyed each other emotionally. It was a grizzly collision: Weonna, to get back at me because she said I had hurt her, had seduced one of my sons. I didn’t explode. I simply realized it was over and that there was no possibility of anything between us again. After what she did it was impossible to patch it up. I reassured my boy that he should not feel guilty, that what happened had been a maneuver by her to stick a dagger in my heart, and that he had no reason to feel any remorse.

Brando continues with some details about Banner’s later life but it isn’t clear how accurate it is:

For about five years, I didn’t see Weonna, though I thought about her often and from time to time heard news about her: she had moved to New Mexico, had given up acting, had done well in real estate, and had entered law school.

He goes on to talk about them back in touch when she returned to Los Angeles. It’s mostly self-serving nonsense. He claims that had she lived, they would have gotten back together.

It is notable that many sources claim she was working for Brando at the end. There is no mention of this.

He ends by claiming that Banner wanted to be buried with her father. I don’t doubt she once said that. But people get this idea that if someone says something once to them that much be The Truth. She didn’t know her father. She wasn’t a practicing Catholic. “Her mother is also dead now, and I’ve often thought of having Weonna’s casket moved so that she can be with her father. I know that one day I’ll do it.” He never did.

Alice Marchak

Alice Marchak was Marlon Brando’s long-time personal assistant. She wrote about the experience in Me and Marlon. She tells a rather different story to Marlon’s but I suspect they can be integrated.

Marlon had asked Jill to marry him. He suggested she pick out a ring. Instead, she opted for a ruby and emerald apple, that he had made for her, which she wore on a gold chain around her neck. Jill chose the apple for sentimental reasons. Marlon affectionately called her “the apple of my eye.”

The engagement was of short duration — the wedding bells would not be ringing.

They were en route to Tahiti via Hawaii with some friends and, as Jill recounted, they were on the balcony of the hotel. There were large waves crashing over the rocks below. Marlon was in a very surly mood; he was trying to antagonize everyone. He picked on her until he got a rise out of her. She uttered something that sent him round the bend. He went for her. He missed her, but not the ruby apple, which he tore from her neck and threw over the balcony into the sea and rocks below.

As far as Jill was concerned, the engagement was broken at that moment. There was no way the jeweled apple could be retrieved from the rocks and the sea. The attack, and loss, naturally upset her. That’s when, she confided, Marlon urged Valium on her. But she had cleaned up her act. She wasn’t going to allow him to control her ever again. And certainly not with drugs, as he had in the past. She decided she had to save herself. She couldn’t go to Tahiti with him. She returned to California. Called me. I applauded her decision. Jill left California. She didn’t say goodbye to anyone. None of her friends would tell Marlon where she was if they knew. Her mother professed not to know where her daughter was. When I spoke to her, she said Jill was saddened by not being able to let me know where she was, but she was afraid that out of loyalty to Marlon, I might tell him. It was a year before I heard of her whereabouts, but I never told Marlon.

A friend of mine, who lived in Santa Fe, had seen her. I never tried to contact Jill directly, but periodically I would call her mother to inquire about her. I wanted her to know I cared.

Jill was away for a few years. Then one day I learned from Marlon she had returned to California. Marlon revealed that a friend had seen her and had invited her to dinner. Marlon dropped in. He didn’t tell me the reception he received, but it must have been cool, because he didn’t see her again or he would have told me. She hadn’t phoned me. I decided I’d give her space and time since it was evident after several weeks that she did not want to resume her relationship with Marlon.

Then she called. We buried the past, but the future was in doubt. She was afraid of a relationship of any kind with Marlon. She had changed, but she realized he hadn’t. And she didn’t know if she was strong enough to withstand a Brando onslaught, or even wanted to prop him up as I had through the years. We’d stay in touch. After we terminated the call, I realized I failed to obtain her telephone number.

Marlon and I were leaving for Tahiti, Tetiaroa, for the summer. I promised myself I would call Jill upon my return. I wanted to see her again, have one of our enjoyable lunches. Vacation over, Marlon and I were on the plane en route home and Jill came to mind. It was about an eight-hour flight and during it, she came to mind several times. After the last time she flitted across my mind, I reminded myself I must contact Jill through her mother as soon as I arrived home. The thought had no sooner crossed my mind when Marlon turned to me and just above a whisper confided, “I think I’ll marry Jill. I’m going to call her when we get home.”

Banner died in a car accident before either could call.

Peggy Lipton

In her autobiography, Breathing Out, Peggy Lipton discusses Jill Banner in depth. She describes their meeting in Chapter 11, “The Magic Girl”:

The minute I saw Jill, I was enchanted. I watched her from afar for weeks. ” You have to get to know that girl, ” I kept telling myself.

Jill was my total opposite. I was the nice little Jewish girl with the good girl outfits, neatly turned up pageboy hairdo, and just the right Beret in place. On Jill everything was tight and slinky. Shirts, skirts, and cardigans that strained against her tiny bosom. Her skin was translucent. her hair was black, her eyes cobalt blue. She was the most enigmatic, strange, mystical, magical, scary, wonderful person I’d ever seen, and, no matter what it took, I had to get to know her.

Jill would slink around like a cat, slithering between the desks or remaining completely still to observe someone making a complete fool of themselves. She had long cat fingers and long cat nails and a tiny, pouty mouth. She “oozed” Bridget Bardot. She was meticulous about her appearance. No creases or stains over her clothes and her thick bangs were combed long and smooth enough to hide the expression in her eyes. She’d only let you see what she wanted you to see. She didn’t fidget. Everything about her was in slow motion, which fascinated me. I watched her with awe, wondering how I would ever get to know her.

Finally one day I made the approach. I was unbearably shy in most ways, but if I really wanted something, I could psych myself up to go after it. Outside in the cafeteria area, I saw Jill methodically unwrapping her sandwich so not one morsel of food would soil her impossibly glamorous fingernails. When I got my nerve, I asked her if I could have a bite of her sandwich. She said nothing, seductively putting the whole half in my mouth and watching me chew. Her finger caught a little mayonnaise on its tip and the next thing I knew she put it between my lips for me to lick off. She looked at me mischievously with her penetrating blue eyes. She was testing me; these were girls’ initiation rights. We laughed and she began talking to me, which, for Jill, was a big deal.

Lipton tells a few stories to show how Jill tested her. She also says that Jill was 16. But Lipton was 17 when she started at Hollywood Professional School. And she was only two months older than Banner, so I assume Banner was also 17. (She also later says it is 1963, so that tracks.)

In Chapter 12, “Enter Earl,” Lipton brings up the subject of sex via a 50-something war correspondent who Jill and she hung out with after school. It does not seem that Jill was sexually involved with him.

Jill and Earl were like characters in a movie. It was as if they had invented themselves. Jill seemed to come from nowhere. She had no father. No sisters. No brothers. She lived with her mother, but in all the years we were friends, I never met her mother or even talked to her. They came from Iowa farm country and her real name was Mary Kay — that was all I knew. That’s all I ever knew. The fact that we were so different from each other in our looks, our backgrounds, and our personalities had a profound magnetic pool on our relationship.

We became best friends. Every day after school, the two of us took our positions on Earl’s ratty couch. Her head on one end and my head on the other, our legs intertwined, drinking Coke and smoking cigarettes, petting the cats, and just fantasizing about our lives.

In Chapter 17, “We’ve Got a Ticket to Ride,” the two (with Earl’s help) try to meet The Beatles. But Peggy had to take the lead because Jill got cast in Spider Baby. She screwed things up for Jill but did end up meeting and sleeping with Paul McCartney. This seems to have caused a break in Jill and Peggy’s relationship, which lasted for about a year.

There is one story about Jill protecting Peggy from an abusive ex-boyfriend. And then Jill is never mentioned again except in passing at the end of the book related to an event in 1997, “I didn’t have Jill in my life anymore — she had died in a car crash in 1982, while living with Marlon Brando.” The fact that she’s wrong about Jill living with Brando shows their relationship was over long before Jill’s death.

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Image of Jill Banner taken from Find a Grave. Licensed under Fair Use.