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Dirty Sexy Money Matriarch Jill Clayburgh Dies

Letitia Darling's impeccable pedigree had nothing on Jill Clayburgh.
/ Source: E!online

Letitia Darling's impeccable pedigree had nothing on Jill Clayburgh.

The film, TV and stage actress who played the protective matriarch of a secretive family on Dirty Sexy Money has died after a 21-year battle with leukemia. She was 66.

Clayburgh's husband, playwright David Rabe, said his wife of 31 years passed away at their home in Lakeville, Conn., surrounded by family.

The New York City native graduated from Sarah Lawrence and got her start in the late 1960s in Broadway productions of Pippin and The Rothschilds, and scored a role in the film The Wedding Party, directed by Sarah Lawrence grad Brian DePalma, with her buddy Robert De Niro.

Clayburgh's feature breakthrough was in Portnoy's Complaint in 1972. Seven years later, she scored an Oscar nomination for Best Actress playing a divorce coming into her own in An Unmarried Woman. She tempted Oscar yet again in 1980 playing Burt Reynold's love interest in the comedy Starting Over.

In later years, Clayburgh showed up all over the small screen, appearing on Frasier, Ally McBeal, The Practice, Nip/Tuck and, starting in 2007, Dirty Sexy Money, which lasted two seasons.

She also has a role in the upcoming Jake Gyllenhaal-Anne Hathaway comedy Love and Other Drugs.

In addition to her husband, Clayburgh is survived by daughter Lily Rabe, son Michael Rabe and stepson Jason Rabe. David Rabe says that there will not be a funeral; instead, the family will hold a memorial in six months.

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