“I’m in so many Charles Bronson films because no other actress will work with him.”
Jill Ireland is best known for acting in many movies alongside her second husband, Charles Bronson. She also played Leila Kalomi—the only woman Mr. Spock ever loved—in the Star Trek episode “This Side of Paradise.”
Jill began her career as a dancer, and her first credited movie role was in Oh… Rosalinda!! in 1955. Two years later, she married actor David McCallum and acted with him in the action film Hell Drivers (1957). In the mid-1960s, they moved to the U.S. so McCallum could star in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Jill also got regular TV work and acted alongside him in five episodes of that show between 1964 and 1967.
She and McCallum divorced in 1967. A year later, she married Charles Bronson, who wasn’t yet a big star. She had met him years earlier when McCallum introduced them on the set of The Great Escape (1963). Jill and Bronson acted together in the French film Rider on the Rain (1970), after first sharing a scene in Villa Rides (1968) and appearing briefly in Lola (1970)—the film that made Bronson famous in Europe.
Over the next 17 years, they made 13 more movies together. During that time, Bronson was one of the biggest movie stars in the world, rivaling Clint Eastwood in the ’70s before his fame faded in the ’80s. During that same period, Jill rarely acted in anything without Bronson—just one TV episode, one TV movie, and one film.
Happy Birthday, Jill Ireland!
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