NEED TO KNOW
- Joy Harmon, a Hollywood and stage actress who became a baker, has reportedly died at age 87
- Known for an iconic scene in 1967’s Cool Hand Luke, she got her start as a contestant and co-host of Groucho Marx quiz shows
- After baking at home and for friends and family, Harmon launched a bakery in Los Angeles
Joy Harmon, the actress known for her role in Cool Hand Luke who later became a baker, has died. She was 87 years old.
Harmon’s ex-husband, Jeff Gourson, confirmed to PEOPLE that Harmon died on Tuesday, April 14.
In an exclusive statement to PEOPLE, Gourson says Harmon “died peacefully and surrounded by family.”
“She was a wonderful person, who always loved baking,” Gourson says of Harmon. “Even back when she was acting, she’d bake cookies and bring them to set, and later she opened her bakery and went to it every single day. She loved that place. also loved animals. She lived above Burbank in Shadow Hills and there were all these peacocks that would come around, the chickens, the squirrels, the peacocks would come right up to her because she’d feed them. So she loved people, she loved animals, and she loved baking. We’ll miss her dearly. We miss her already.”
Per TMZ, Harmon passed away in hospice care at her Los Angeles home on Tuesday, April 14 after a pneumonia diagnosis weeks ago. The outlet added that she was working at her Burbank bakery, Aunt Joy’s Cakes, the day before she went to the hospital.
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Born in Queens, New York in 1940 and raised in Connecticut, Harmon began as a beauty pageant contestant and model before getting her start in regional theater. It was Groucho Marx’s quiz show The Groucho Show, later called You Bet Your Life, that kickstarted her screen career in the early 1960s, as Marx asked her to return as co-host of spin-off show Tell It to Groucho.Ruby Rose accuses Katy Perry of sexual assault, singer denies
After making her Broadway debut in 1958 in the play Make a Million, Harmon began making cameo appearances in TV and film until 1973. She played a giant in 1965’s Village of the Giants. Opposite Paul Newman, she featured as a character known as Lucille, The Girl, who sensuously washed his car in an iconic scene from 1967’s Cool Hand Luke.
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Harmon was married to filmmaker Gourson from 1968 to 2001; the pair shared three children, Jason, Julie and Jamie. She pivoted from Hollywood to baking after sharing treats she had baked with coworkers on film sets, including Marx.
Per the Aunt Joy’s Cakes website, the bakery “started in the kitchen of her home in California. The name originated when Joy Harmon began supplying cakes to her niece’s coffee shop. Whenever she made a delivery her niece would cheer, ‘Aunt Joy’s cakes are here!’”
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A GoFundMe established to cover Harmon’s medical expenses reads, “Those who knew her remember not just her talent, but her kindness—she was known to return money sent by fans, simply out of gratitude. Joy leaves behind her three children, nine grandchildren, and a legacy defined by creativity, compassion, and love.”
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