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In Memoriam: Superchick Joyce Jillson (1947-2004)

© Paul Armentano

"She's all woman and all every woman wants to be: forceful, feminine, free. Super brain, super body, super charged, Superchick, a swinging motion picture experience about a super kind of woman. In public she's a mild mannered stewardess. In private she's a mistress of the martial arts. Superchick, she's more than just one woman and too much for just one man! ... Superchick, the super kind of woman. Always in the middle of where the action is, always ready for a new adventure. You can't afford to miss Superchick. She's much more than you ever had before." -- promotional trailer for Superchick

99 Cent Video Reviews mourns the passing of Joyce "Superchick" Jillson, who died earlier this month after battling kidney disease. She was 58.

While media reports highlighted Ms. Jillson's successful career as the self-proclaimed "Astrologer to the Stars" (her most notable clients were former President and First Lady Ronald and Nancy Reagan), cult movie fans most fondly remember her as the sexy stewardess Tara B. True in Ed Forsyth's classic 1973 film Superchick.

Cashing in on the blossoming 1970s' sexual liberation movement, Forsyth chose Jillson to epitomize the ideal post-feminist woman: self-reliant, successful, self-assured, and seductive enough to possess a suitor in every port. "Life's made up of people, not just one person," Superchick (who's devoid of any "superpowers" other than her own intellect and sexual frankness) tells her multiple love interests in the film's surprisingly philosophical conclusion. "I take life the way it is -- people the way they are. I don't want to change it or them. I will live the lives I choose, with or without you."

Arguably campy and noticeably tame by today's cinematic standards, Superchick's humor, attitude, and "what-were-they-smoking?" inherent quirkiness has proudly earned the film prominent billing in the 99 Cent Video Review movie library.

Jillson went on to star in the 1976 B-movie film Slumber Party '57 before launching a full-time career as an astrologer and syndicated columnist. Her most well known role as an actress was on the television soap opera series "Peyton Place."

Her obituary appears below.

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LOS ANGELES -- Joyce Jillson, author of a nationally syndicated astrology column who divined the stars on behalf of a Hollywood movie studio, died of kidney failure Oct. 1 in Los Angeles. She was 58.

Her daily astrology column appeared in nearly 200 newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times and the New York Daily News.

As the official astrologer for 20th Century Fox Studios, Ms. Jillson was consulted on the best opening days for Fox movies. She picked the opening date for 1977's "Star Wars," which is the second-highest grossing movie ever.

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