Jill Banner was an American film actress, possibly best known for her role as Virginia, the "spider baby" in the 1968cult horror-comedy film Spider Baby. She also had roles as James Coburn's flower child friend in The President's Analyst, and appearances in Jack Webb's television series, Dragnet.
Early life
Banner was born in Bremerton, Washington. After her father's death in 1949, she and her mother lived in South Dakota and Iowa, near relatives, finally ending up in Glendale, California. She studied at the Hollywood Professional School, a K-12 school for working professional children run by Maurice and Bertha Mann, where classes typically ran from 8:45 AM to 12:45 PM, allowing the students the afternoon off to pursue various jobs or performing careers. The school assemblies, called "Aud. Calls", were early showcases for the talents of students aspiring to be dancers, singers, and actors. She graduated in 1964.
Film and television
Banner's film acting began in 1964 for Spider Baby with Sid Haig and Lon Chaney, Jr. Directed by Jack Hill ; however the film was tied up in litigation and was not released until 1968 under various titles, including Attack Of The Liver Eaters and Cannibal Orgy, Or The Maddest Story Ever Told. The four-year-old black and white feature quickly faded from view. Spider Baby became known largely through the efforts of Los Angeles cult film resurrectionist Johnny Legend. The film tells the story of the Merrye family, who suffer from a degenerative disease. While Spider Baby remained in legal limbo, Banner was featured in Deadlier Than The Male, a British mystery about two female assassins. In she played Wendy, a wholesome teenager, in C'mon, Let's Live a Little, one of the last of the "beach party" films, and as Caroline in the Spaghetti Western, The Stranger Returns. In the psychedelically paranoid spy spoof The President's Analyst, Banner was a flower child named "Snow White", who temporarily rescues James Coburn from a combined conspiracy of the American CIA, the Russian KGB, and The Phone Company. She was featured in several episodes of Jack Webb's police-procedural shows, Dragnet1967 and Adam-12, usually playing clueless teenagers and spaced-out daytrippers. In the Dragnet story "Forgery", she played a pot-smoking woman who is duped into a life of check fraud by two hippie dope dealers. In another episode, "The Hammer", Banner played a hardened but stupid juvenile whose sociopath boyfriend has murdered an elderly man for money and a ring. When captured, Banner's character shows no remorse, prompting Detective Sgt. Joe Friday to say: "I'll bet your mother had a loud bark." Banner performed in several movies and TV shows in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including Shadow Over Elveron with Don Ameche and Adam-12 co-star Kent McCord. In The Stranger Returns, a comic spaghetti western, Banner played the pretty daughter of a corrupt postal official who falls into the hands of banditos, only to be rescued by The Stranger. She was also featured in Hunters Are For Killing, an early Burt Reynolds movie. In an interview, Reynolds once joked that such films were typically shown in prisons and airplanes because no one in the audience could leave. She appeared in episodes of the television showsThe Bold Ones and Cade's County. She had an uncredited bit part in Christian Marquand's 1968 film Candy, but her scene was deleted from the final print.
Later years
Banner eventually abandoned Hollywood for a real estate job in New Mexico in 1976. Marlon Brando's 1994 autobiography, Songs My Mother Taught Me, discusses the couple's relationship. Banner returned to Southern California and in the early 1980s, reportedly to develop scripts.
