Joy Harmon dead at 87: Glamorous blonde from Cool Hand Luke car wash scene passes away after health battle
Joy Harmon, the 1960s screen icon who fascinated her fans with Cool Hand Luke, passed away at the age of 87.
Harmon, known for her sultry turn as car washer Lucille in the 1967 classic opposite Paul Newman, passed away surrounded by loved ones at her home in the Los Angeles area on Tuesday, a family member confirmed. TMZ.
The actor, who later started running a successful bakery in Burbank, California, was ill with pneumonia a few weeks before his death.
Harmon was said to have ‘fought to the end’ and was expected to recover before he died, even working at his bakery, Aunt Joy’s Cakes, the day before he was hospitalised.
The family member told the publication that he was ‘hospitalized for one to two weeks, then spent a few weeks in a rehab facility, and then returned home to spend his final days in hospice care and with his loved ones.’
Joy Harmon, the 1960s cinema icon who fascinated her fans in Cool Hand Luke, died at the age of 87; She was portrayed as car washer Lucille in the 1967 film.
According to TMZ, a family member confirmed Harmon passed away Tuesday at his Los Angeles-area home surrounded by loved ones – photo taken in 1972’s The Odd Double
He has also appeared in films such as Giants Village, The Angel in My Pocket, and One Way Wahine, as well as TV roles in the TV series Bewitched, The Odd Double, and Batman.
Harmon stepped away from her Hollywood career to focus on raising her three children with ex-husband Jeff Gourson.
Her family remembered Harmon as ‘full of life and vitality, a positive thinker, and had absolutely no problem spreading joy throughout her life.’
He leaves three children and nine grandchildren.
Born in Queens in 1940, Patricia Joy Harmon became a newsreel model at the age of three, and then her family moved to Connecticut, where she grew up.
As a teenager, she was a finalist in the Miss Connecticut pageant and began her stage career at a local theater in Bridgeport, leading to her Broadway debut at age 18, in Make a Million, a quiz comedy.
Groucho Marx saw her in the production and was so impressed with her that he brought her onto the reality quiz show You Bet Your Life and launched her in Hollywood.
He made her the announcer of the later quiz show Tell It To Groucho, and she fondly recalled on the podcast that he often flirted with her on set. Hollywood pioneer.
‘He was famous for flirting with women. He was flirting with me a lot while we were on set. But that wasn’t like him at all, because then he would interrogate me: “Where did you go last night? What were you doing? No, you’re not doing that.” “He was just like a father to me, but I loved him very much and went to his house a lot,” she said.
In the 1960s, he worked on popular television series of the period such as The Beverly Hillbillies, The Man from UNCLE, That Girl and Burke’s Law.
However, her best-remembered role was in Cool Hand Luke, as a blonde named Lucille who suggestively washes cars and hangs around for the benefit of the increasingly overheated group of inmates doing prison work nearby.
The three-minute scene established it as an enduring poster child of the 1960s and foreshadowed the increasingly explicit sexuality of the emerging New Hollywood.
When Harmon came to audition for the role, the film’s leading man, Paul Newman, was amazed by her appearance and marveled: ‘God, you have such blue eyes.’
Before the car wash scene was filmed, the male actors portraying the inmates, including Newman, George Kennedy, J.D. Cannon, Strother Martin and Jo Van Vleet, were prohibited from bringing their wives or girlfriends to the set.
“They wanted men to not be around women for long periods of time,” Harmon explained. ‘That’s why they couldn’t talk to me – the players, you know. They kept them separate because I guess they wanted their reaction.’
Harmon continued to receive fan mail for the car wash scene until the final years of his life; Customers at his bakery asked him to sign stills from the movie.
She married film editor and TV producer Jeff Gourson in 1968 and continued to appear on shows such as The Monkees and Love, American Style.
After making a final cameo in an episode of the 1973 flop sitcom Thicker Than Water starring Julie Harris, she retired from acting to focus on raising her children and found her second role in Burbank with her beloved Aunt Joy’s Cakes.
