Jennifer Leak, soap opera star and Yours, Mine and Ours (1968) actress, died on March 18 at her home in Jupiter, Fla., reports The East Hampton Star. She was 76.
The actress was diagnosed with the rare neurological disease progressive supranuclear palsy seven years before her death, per The East Hampton Star.
Leak was born on Sept. 28, 1947, in Cardiff, Wales. Throughout her childhood, she grew up in various cities, including Hertfordshire, England, Nova Scotia, Canada, Jerusalem, and Toronto. She began her career in Canada at the age of 17 after she appeared in the Mike Nichols-directed pilot of the Canadian television series Wojeck.
She was then cast in Nichols’ The Graduate but was unable to join the production due to immigration difficulties.
Leak later moved to Los Angeles, and within a few months, she was cast as Lucille Ball’s daughter in the 1968 feature Yours, Mine and Ours. On that set, Leak met her first husband, Tim Matheson.
The former couple played step-siblings in the comedy film about a blended family of 18 children. Matheson portrayed Mike Beardsley, the son of Henry Fonda’s Frank.
Following her death, Matheson, 76, penned a tribute to her on Facebook.
“It is with a heavy heart that I share the news of Jennifer Leak’s passing. She wasn’t just my screen sister in ‘Yours, Mine and Ours,’ but also my beloved first wife,” wrote Matheson. “Jennifer was a remarkable woman, strong, lovely, and incredibly talented. My deepest condolences go out to her husband of 47 years, James D’Auria, and their multitude of friends.”
The former couple married in 1968 and divorced in 1971.
While living in Los Angeles, she pivoted back to TV once more, and appeared in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Hawaii Five-0 and Nero Wolfe. She later joined the world of daytime soap operas, which “became her favorite medium and what she loved performing in most,” said her husband, James D’Auria, per The East Hampton Star.
She starred as Gwen Sherman on The Young and the Restless in Los Angeles for three years and joined Another World as Olive Springer Gordon Randolph for an additional three years in New York.
During her time in New York, she met D’Auria, her husband of 47 years. The pair married in April 1977. D’Auria described his late wife as “a shy and private person, never desiring to be the center of attention or having the need for an audience,” adding, “She saved those feelings and exhibited them only when on camera, and then she became electric,” per The East Hampton Star.
By the mid-1980s, she had retired from screen acting and worked as a sales agent for a real estate company.
Throughout her marriage to D’Auria, the pair split their time between New York City and the Hamptons. In 2001, they moved full-time to the Hamptons, and then in 2017 relocated to Florida.
She is survived by her husband and brother, Kenneth Leak.
