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Claudia Jennings in Les gladiateurs de l'an 3000 (1978)

Biography

Claudia Jennings

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Overview

  • Born
    December 20, 1949 · Evanston, Illinois, USA
  • Died
    October 3, 1979 · Malibu, California, USA (road accident)
  • Birth name
    Mary Eileen Chesterton
  • Nickname
    • Mimi
  • Height
    1.68 m

Biography

    • Born Mary Eileen "Mimi" Chesterton (nicknamed Mimi by her friends and family) in St. Paul, Minnesota, titian beauty Claudia Jennings was raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1966, she moved to Evanston, Illinois, the first suburb north of Chicago just south of the Wisconsin state line, where she graduated high school in 1968.

      After joining the Hull House theater company in Chicago, she took a job as a receptionist at the offices of Playboy magazine in September 1968. Photographer Pompeo Posar asked her to test, and with a potential $5,000 check at stake -- enough for a ticket to Hollywood -- she agreed. She eventually appeared as a Playmate in November 1969, and later as 1970 Playmate of the Year. Re-naming herself Claudia Jennings to avoid family embarrassment due to posing in the nude, she became the most perennially popular Playmate of the 1970s, as well as the number one female star of "Drive-In" movies such as The Unholy Rollers (1972) and Les Marais de la haine (1973). Her first film role was with the film Jud (1971), a low-budget, socially conscious, independent film about a Vietnam soldier's return home. While the film came and went without much notice, it encouraged Claudia to go into the acting business full time.

      From 1970 to 1975, she lived with songwriter/producer Bobby Hart but, after their split, her personal life began to spiral. She began using drugs and soon got a reputation for being unreliable. As her cocaine use began to escalate, her career from this point began to flounder.

      One of her last theatrical film roles was a co-starring part in the little-seen Canadian racetrack drama Fast Company (1979). After narrowly missing the role of Kate Jackson's replacement on Drôles de dames (1976) to Shelley Hack in May 1979, she began a tumultuous relationship with Beverly Hills realtor Stan Herman. Following their split later that summer, Jennings turned her life around and tried to quit drugs and drinking, but sadly died before she could continue performing in better films. On the morning of October 3, 1979, she was at the wheel of her VW convertible in Malibu on the Pacific Coast Highway, and drifted across the center divider, colliding head-on with a pickup truck near the intersection of Topanga Canyon Boulevard. She died a few minutes later before paramedics could arrive and get her to a nearby hospital. She was 29.
      - IMDb Mini Biography By: Ari Bass

Family

  • Parents
      Gerard Alfred Chesterton
      Joan Marie Houle
  • Relatives
      Keith Jennings(Sibling)

Trivia

  • Although she had problems with drugs during her life, no traces of drugs were found in her system after her death. So drugs were ruled out as a cause of her auto accident death.
  • Aaron Spelling wanted her to possibly replace Kate Jackson for Drôles de dames (1976) before her untimely death, but her four Playboy spreads scared network executives off.
  • Playboy Playmate of the Month November 1969.
  • Playboy Playmate of the Year 1970.
  • 240-Robert (TV show she shot an episode for two weeks before her death) was filming within sight of her fatal crash. Crew ran to the accident, not recognizing her and was unable to help her.

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