Gayle Hunnicutt

Children2, including Nolan Hemmings

Gayle Jenkins, Lady Jenkins (née Hunnicutt; February 6, 1943 – August 31, 2023) was an American film, television and stage actress. She made more than 30 film appearances.

Early life and education

The daughter of Colonel Sam Lloyd Hunnicutt and Mary Virginia (née Dickerson) Hunnicutt, she was born in Fort Worth, Texas. Hunnicutt attended the University of California, Los Angeles on a scholarship to study English literature and theatre. She worked as a fashion model, then became an actress.^{[citation needed]}

Career

Acting

During her film career, Hunnicutt was typecast as a brunette sexpot.^[1][2] She portrayed Emaline Fetty, a con woman trying to extort money from the Clampetts in two episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies in 1966.^[3] She co-starred with James Garner in the detective film Marlowe (1969), in which her character was a glamorous Hollywood actress.

After she moved to England with husband David Hemmings in 1970, Hunnicutt was able to use the finer range of her acting. She and Hemmings co-starred in two horror films in the early 1970's, Fragment of Fear (1970) and Voices (1973). She had a prominent role as Charlotte Stant in Jack Pulman's television adaptation of Henry James's novel The Golden Bowl (1972). She played Ann Barrett in The Legend of Hell House (1973) and Tsarina Alexandra in the television miniseries Fall of Eagles (1974). She appeared as Irene Adler, opposite Jeremy Brett, in the first episode of the TV series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ("A Scandal in Bohemia") in 1984. She also appeared in another Marlowe mystery in an episode of HBO's Philip Marlowe, Private Eye (1983), this time starring Powers Boothe. She had a supporting role in the thriller Target (1985), co-starring Gene Hackman and Matt Dillon. Hunnicutt returned to the United States in 1989 to play the role of Vanessa Beaumont in Dallas until 1991.

In 2012, Hunnicutt was featured in an episode of the HGTV reality show Selling London, in which she presented the Primrose Hill estate where she and her second husband, journalist and editor Simon Jenkins, lived for three decades.^[4]

Writing

Hunnicutt wrote two books. The first, Health and Beauty in Motherhood, was published in 1984. In 2004, she published Dearest Virginia: Love Letters from a Cavalry Officer in the South Pacific, which contains the letters exchanged by her parents during World War II.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life and death

On November 16, 1968, Hunnicutt married British actor David Hemmings, with whom she had a son, the actor Nolan Hemmings; they divorced in 1975. Hunnicutt married journalist Simon Jenkins in 1978. The couple lived in Primrose Hill, London, where they raised their son Edward. Jenkins was appointed a Knight Bachelor for services to journalism in the 2004 New Year honours. They divorced in 2009. In 2010, she started dating Richard Evans, tennis correspondent of The Daily Telegraph.^[5]

Hunnicutt died on August 31, 2023, at the age of 80 in London.^[6][7]

Filmography

Television

References

External links

• Gayle Hunnicutt at IMDb
• Gayle Hunnicutt discography at Discogs