Jill Schary Robinson (May 30, 1936 – July 20, 2024) was an American novelist, essayist, and teacher. Based in Los Angeles, her memoirs contended with the themes of addiction, recovery, and growing up during the golden age of Hollywood.
Early life
Schary Robinson was born in Los Angeles on May 30, 1936,[1] to a Jewish family, the daughter of Dore Schary, the Oscar and Tony Award-winning writer, producer, and head of MGM[2][3] and Miriam Svet, a painter.[4] In 1956, she married Jon Courrier Zimmer, then a lieutenant in the United States Naval Reserve, in a Jewish ceremony in Beverly Hills.[5]
During the 1980s, Robinson relocated to London and wrote a series of columns on being an American in Britain for London's Daily Telegraph. Her Vanity Fair story on Roman Polanski was included in George Plimpton’s book The Best American Movie Writing for 1998.
In 1999 author Jonathan Lethem described 1999's Past Forgetting as a "quietly moving memoir recounting that great rarity, a truly encompassing and persistent loss of memory."[14] Robinson and her husband Stuart Shaw also performed on cruise ships, reading their play Falling in Love When You Thought You Were Through (adapted from their memoir, published in 2002).
In 2005, Robinson was given a lifetime grant to develop the non-profit Wimpole Street Writers program, which continues both in London and Los Angeles.[15]
^Schary Robinson, Jill (June 1, 2016). "About Eighty". jillscharyrobinson.com. I think of myself as a writer, a grandmother who makes art for the grandchildren. As a woman, a Jew? Depends—not always any of these, but a jazz band perhaps, each part of myself knowing its own score, and where to come in, and when.
