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Jill Townsend, an Anglo-American actress prominent in the 1960s and '70s, transitioned to journalism after leaving acting in 1979, later becoming a teacher and spiritual healer. Born on January 25, 1945, in Santa Monica, California, she was the daughter of Robert Townsend, a business executive and author who left American Express to become CEO of Avis Rental Cars in 1962, transforming it into a major competitor to Hertz during the 1960s. He authored the bestselling management book "Up The Organization" in 1970, and Jill, inheriting his intelligence and organizational skills, typed the manuscript for him.
Growing up as the daughter of a top executive, Jill was part of New York's High Society and a debutante. Raised in Locust Valley, Long Island, she graduated from The Master's School in Dobbs Ferry, New York, in 1963. She chose to forgo college to study acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Show business was in her lineage: her maternal grandfather, Frank Tours, was a composer and conductor affiliated with the Algonquin Roundtable and served as musical director for several of Irving Berlin's Broadway shows.
In 1971, she married Scottish actor Nicol Williamson, with whom she had a turbulent relationship due to his volatile temperament. They first met in 1965 when she played his daughter in John Osborne's Inadmissible Evidence (1968) on Broadway. Within two weeks of meeting, he proposed marriage, and they lived together, but she left after 21 months. She starred in the TV western Cimarron Strip (1967) and later married Tom Sutton, a stuntman and horse-wrangler who was Stuart Whitman's stand-in on the series. Throughout the late '60s, she appeared in numerous American TV shows, mainly Westerns.
After her divorce, she and Williamson reconciled at her initiative, and she moved to England. They married in 1971, with their son Luke born two years later. The couple appeared together in the BBC's production of Bertolt Brecht's The Gangster Show: The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1972) and the film The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976), in which she played his mother. Williamson also directed her in a 1975 Royal Shakespeare Company production of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, in which he co-starred.
Townsend sought movie stardom with the female lead in Alfie Darling (1975), the sequel to Alfie (1966), which had made Michael Caine a global star. However, the film was a critical and commercial failure. She took on many roles in British television, including a leading part in the mini-series The Golden Bowl (1972) and the TV series Poldark (1975).
Her marriage to the notoriously tempestuous Williamson ended in 1976, the same year People Magazine published an article titled "Who's Afraid of Nicol Williamson? Everyone but His Spouse, Jill Townsend." The breakup was acrimonious from Williamson's side. Paul Rudnick, playwright of Broadway's I Hate Hamlet, which closed early due to Williamson's behavior, recalled the actor insulting his ex-wife in his dressing room 15 years after their separation.
In 1979, Townsend left acting to study at the London School of Journalism and became a financial columnist for The Daily Mail. From 1979 to 1981, she worked on developing environmental legislation aimed at preventing the dumping of toxic and nuclear waste. She ran as an independent candidate for office, but, as an American citizen, her candidacy was illegal, and she lost by 80 votes.
During the 1980s, she served as assistant to the chair of Windsor Cable Television, managing marketing, public relations, and program development for Britain's first cable TV franchise. Between 1981 and 1989, she studied international relations at the University of Surrey and temporarily returned to the U.S. to work as a teaching assistant focusing on negotiation at Harvard Law School. Townsend also became Deputy Director of the Geneva-based Foundation for International Conciliation.
In 1989, she permanently returned to the U.S. and settled in California. From 1989 to 1995, she taught at various institutions, including the Crossroads School in Santa Monica, The Ojai Foundation, Highland Hall School, the Los Angeles and Santa Monica Zen Centers, and UCLA Extension. Beginning in 1993, she served as director of Leadership Directories, Inc.
She lives in the Los Padres National Forest near Ojai with her third husband, sustainability designer and environmental advocate Bob Sorel. Immersing herself in Native American ceremonies and folk medicine, she became a spiritual counselor, minister, and ceremonialist offering readings and energy healing. She co-founded the Council of Grandmothers with Ann Stein and Marilyn Salas, an organization of "WisdomKeepers"—women over 52 who provide counsel based on their extensive experience and knowledge.
