{"id":11488,"date":"2025-08-19T18:02:30","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T18:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=11488"},"modified":"2025-09-07T19:45:42","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T19:45:42","slug":"jill-st-john-wanted-to-share-recipes-but-not-robert-wagner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=11488","title":{"rendered":"Jill St. John wanted to share recipes but not Robert Wagner"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

Jill St. John, who turns 85 today, has brightened big and small screens in countless TV shows and movies including her big splash as the first American James Bond girl, Tiffany Case, in \u2018Diamonds Are Forever\u2019 opposite Sean Connery in 1971.<\/p>\n

When I spoke to her on the phone in 1985 for a story for Canadian TV Guide, the Los Angeles-born actress was busier with a cooking segment on ABC-TV\u2019s \u2018Good Morning America\u2019. That came about after she was a guest of chef Julia Child\u2019s \u2018Celebrity Cooks\u2019 pieces on the show and the network was bombarded with requests to see her again.<\/p>\n

St. John told me she was always happy to share recipes and could not understand why some people refused to. \u2018I don\u2019t blame restaurants for not revealing their secrets but I always get cranky when people won\u2019t give you a recipe because I think it\u2019s kind of secretive, jealous and miserly,\u2019 she said. \u2018If you\u2019re at somebody\u2019s house for dinner and you say, my God that was great and they say, well, it\u2019s been in the family for years and they couldn\u2019t possibly give it up, that will end a friendship for me because I give away my recipes with pleasure.\u2019<\/p>\n

When she had an acting job at a Hollywood studio she usually brought her own lunch in a brown bag: \u2018It depends,\u2019 she said. \u2018Twentieth Century-Fox has the best restaurant in all of show business. I must say, that\u2019s how I used to choose my movies: O.K., I\u2019ll go to Universal as they have one great sandwich there. When I work at Fox, I never brownbag it but if it\u2019s M-G-M or even the Burbank Studiuos, it\u2019s brownbag. Obviously they have certain things but if I\u2019m working for nine weeks, I\u2019ll brownbag it six of the weeks, then I know what I\u2019m getting.\u2019<\/p>\n

At the time, she was dating Robert Wagner (known as RJ), who had been a friend since they were contract players at 20th Century-Fox in the early sixties. Wagner\u2019s wife Natalie Wood had died in a drowning accident in 1981. She worked with him on his 1967 picture \u2018How I Spent My Summer Vacation\u2019 and appeared in the pilots of both \u2018Hart to Hart\u2019 and \u2018Lime Street\u2019.<\/p>\n

The latter show was about to be revamped but she told me she did not \u00a0want to be in it: \u2018I\u2019d much rather be the lady he comes home to than the lady he\u2019s with all day. I don\u2019t think it would be good for our relationship. If I were not in love with him then I\u2019d love to work with him again.\u2019<\/p>\n

St. John did the \u2018Lime Street\u2019 pilot, she said, for good luck but when it was cut from two-hours to 90 minutes, she ended up on the cutting room floor. She thought the show – which did not survive following the death in an airplane crash of young actress Samantha Smith – suffered from not having a leading lady. As a friend, she said, she missed seeing Wagner with a beautiful woman although she admitted, \u00a0\u2018As his girlfriend, I\u2019m not so sure. But as his friend I really think he should be seen with beautiful women. I definitely think that a woman like Stefanie Powers \u00a0is missed. She couldn\u2019t do this series as it would be \u201cHart to Hart\u201d all over again but I think the network were total jerks, morons and idiots to cancel that hit show.<\/p>\n

Of course, I don\u2019t own the network but I think Stefanie and RJ could have done that show ad infinitum because they were wonderful in it and everyone loved it. I do think RJ now also feels there should be some beautiful ladies in the new show but I want you to know I say that as his friend and not as his girlfriend.\u2019<\/p>\n

St. John and Wagner, 95, were married in 1990.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett Jill St. John, who turns 85 today, has brightened big and small screens in countless TV shows and movies including her big splash as the first American James Bond girl, Tiffany Case, in \u2018Diamonds Are Forever\u2019 opposite … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,15],"tags":[5496,5498,2334,2333,5253,5497],"class_list":["post-11488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-interviews","category-television","tag-jill-st-john","tag-julia-child","tag-natalie-wood","tag-robert-wagner","tag-stefanie-powers","tag-lime-street"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11488"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11507,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11488\/revisions\/11507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}