Ask someone to name the first American Bond girl, and most people pause before landing on Tiffany Case, the sharp-tongued diamond smuggler opposite Sean Connery in Diamonds Are Forever (1971). The woman behind that role, Jill Arlyn Oppenheim — known to audiences as Jill St John — was born in Los Angeles on August 19, 1940, and spent five decades in front of the camera. The documented biography is easy to find; the rumors around it are louder. What follows keeps the two apart, with a named source attached to every fact.

Nationality: American ·
Born: August 19, 1940 ·
Birthplace: Los Angeles, California ·
Known for: Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever ·
Spouse: Robert Wagner (m. 1990)

Quick snapshot

1Confirmed facts
2What’s unclear
  • Why St John sometimes uses a wheelchair in public photos
  • Whether Robert Wagner has a named, diagnosed illness
  • The precise sequence of events around Natalie Wood’s 1981 death
3Timeline signal
4What’s next

Seven facts anchor the public record, and none of them come from gossip columns.

Label Value
Born name Jill Arlyn Oppenheim
Born August 19, 1940 (Wikipedia biographical reference)
Birthplace Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation Actress
Nationality American
Known for Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever (Rotten Tomatoes film review aggregator)
Spouse Robert Wagner (m. 1990) (IMDb film industry database)

The pattern in the table: every confirmed detail carries a named source, while every rumor in this story carries only a question mark.

What nationality is Jill St. John?

American. The clean answer comes from the birth record: Jill St John was born Jill Arlyn Oppenheim in Los Angeles, California, on August 19, 1940, and biographical references — Wikipedia biographical reference among them — consistently describe her as an American actress.

Who are some famous people named Jill?

  • Jill Biden — educator and former First Lady of the United States
  • Jill Scott — singer, songwriter, and actress
  • Jill Ireland — British actress
  • Jill St John — the actress at the center of this story

The implication: the basic identity questions have clean, sourced answers. The confusion starts where the documentation ends.

Who played Molly on Batman?

Jill St John played Molly, a guest role in the 1966 Batman television series (IMDb filmography database). The role is a dependable trivia answer, but it is a footnote in a much longer career.

The larger story is the Bond role. St John played Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever (1971), opposite Sean Connery’s James Bond (IMDb film industry database), and multiple film summaries describe Tiffany as the first American Bond girl (Rotten Tomatoes film review aggregator).

  • 1958 — feature debut in Summer Love (Apple TV streaming catalogue)
  • Teenager — signed with Universal Pictures (IMDb film industry database)
  • 1960 — The Lost World (Apple TV streaming catalogue)
  • 1963 — Come Blow Your Horn with Frank Sinatra; biographical summaries list a Golden Globe nomination (Wikipedia biographical reference)
  • 1963–1967 — Who’s Minding the Store?, The Oscar, and Tony Rome (Rotten Tomatoes film review aggregator)

In 1969, while George Lazenby was in Los Angeles filming On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, St John dated the new James Bond, according to Wikipedia biographical reference. The relationship ended, but it made her part of another Bond footnote.

Later credits kept her visible on screen: The Concrete Jungle (1982), a cameo as herself in The Player (1992), an episode of Seinfeld (1997), and The Calling and The Trip (2002), all listed in IMDb film industry database.

The upshot

Molly is the trivia answer; Tiffany Case is the legacy. One 1966 guest appearance feeds quiz sites, while the 1971 Bond role still defines how the industry introduces her.

Bottom line: The catch: the career was far wider than the two roles people remember. The record shows five decades of steady work, which is exactly why a single guest spot should not be the headline.

Are Jill St John and Robert Wagner still married?

Yes. St John and Wagner married in 1990 (IMDb film industry database), and the latest available reporting describes the marriage as intact. Hello! Magazine celebrity lifestyle outlet profiled the couple’s quiet life together in Aspen without any suggestion of a split.

Who is Robert Wagner’s partner now?

  • Wagner’s current partner is Jill St John, his wife since 1990 (IMDb film industry database)
  • The two first met around 1959, when St John was about 18, through their shared connection to 20th Century Fox (Hello! Magazine celebrity lifestyle outlet)
  • Their romance began around Valentine’s Day 1982, according to Wikipedia biographical reference
  • They married in 1990 after roughly an eight-year courtship
  • In 2014, they played Santa and Mrs. Claus together in the TV film Northpole (IMDb film industry database)

The pattern: the answer to the relationship question has been stable for more than three decades. Wagner’s partner is the same woman who has stayed beside him through the Natalie Wood questions and the quiet years in Aspen.

Why is Jill St. John in a wheelchair?

No confirmed public explanation exists. The question appears in search queries because occasional photographs show St John using a wheelchair; neither she nor a representative has issued a statement about her mobility or a medical condition.

The catch

The absence of a diagnosis is itself the finding. Health rumors about public figures do not die when sources are missing — the only reliable cure is a named source, and none has appeared.

The respectful reading: St John’s health is private. The public record contains nothing that confirms the premise of the question, and no reliable source documents a reason for wheelchair use.

What illness does Robert Wagner have?

No named illness has been confirmed for Robert Wagner. The question echoes across search engines, but no doctor, no spokesperson, and no credible outlet has documented a diagnosis.

Recent profiles of the couple — including Hello! Magazine celebrity lifestyle outlet — describe their life in Aspen without mentioning any health condition for Wagner.

Why this matters

A question phrased as a fact can outlive every answer. In Wagner’s case, the honest response to “what illness does he have?” stays unconfirmed in every reliable reference.

The check: when no named medical source exists, the premise of the question is unverified, and repeating it does not turn rumor into evidence.

What is the tragedy of Robert Wagner?

The tragedy is Natalie Wood. The actress — Wagner’s wife, then former wife, then wife again — drowned off Santa Catalina Island in 1981. The couple married in 1957, divorced in 1962, and remarried in 1972, according to Wikipedia biographical reference.

Wood’s death did not stay closed. In 2011, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reopened the case, citing new information (Wikipedia biographical reference). No new public resolution followed.

Why did Natalie Wood leave Robert Wagner?

  • The couple divorced in 1962 (Wikipedia biographical reference)
  • They remarried a decade later, in 1972
  • The reasons for the split stayed largely private; the public record preserves the dates, not the drama

Did Robert Wagner go to Natalie Wood’s funeral?

  • Yes — Wagner attended the funeral in 1981, according to biographical accounts (Wikipedia biographical reference)

Who was Robert Wagner’s male lover?

  • A recurring tabloid-era claim, repeated online for decades, has no supporting evidence in the biographical record
  • No court record, no credible interview, and no reliable biography documents the allegation

Did Paul Newman get along with Robert Wagner?

  • No documented conflict between Paul Newman and Robert Wagner appears in the available record
  • The question reads as a search-engine artifact rather than a documented Hollywood feud
The trade-off

The 2011 reopening kept the tragedy in public memory, but it also guaranteed that every later question about Wagner — his health, his marriage, his past — would be filtered through 1981.

Bottom line: The 1981 drowning is documented; the details around it are not. Treat the death as fact, the reopened inquiry as unresolved, and every unverified claim about Wagner’s personal life as rumor until a named source says otherwise.

The consequence: Wood’s death is the event that still generates the loudest questions around Wagner, and the record simply has less to offer than the mythology demands.

Key dates in the Jill St John and Robert Wagner story

Read in order, the dates show a clear pattern: a steady career, a decades-long friendship, and one tragedy that keeps pulling the story back.

  • — Jill Arlyn Oppenheim is born in Los Angeles on August 19 (Wikipedia biographical reference)
  • — St John guest-stars as Molly in Batman (IMDb filmography database)
  • — St John dates George Lazenby while he films On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in Los Angeles (Wikipedia biographical reference)
  • — Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever (Rotten Tomatoes film review aggregator)
  • — Natalie Wood dies; Robert Wagner becomes a widower (Wikipedia biographical reference)
  • — St John and Wagner marry (IMDb film industry database)
  • — Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reopens the Natalie Wood case (Wikipedia biographical reference)

The pattern: everything before 1981 reads like a classic Hollywood biography; everything after it reads like a mystery without a final chapter.

Confirmed facts vs. what remains unclear

One way to read the record: separate what has a named source from what only has an echo.

Confirmed facts

  • Born Jill Arlyn Oppenheim in Los Angeles on August 19, 1940 (Wikipedia biographical reference)
  • American actress (Wikipedia biographical reference)
  • Played Molly in Batman (IMDb filmography database)
  • Played Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever (Rotten Tomatoes film review aggregator)
  • Married Robert Wagner in 1990 (IMDb film industry database)

What’s unclear

  • Why St John sometimes uses a wheelchair
  • Whether Robert Wagner has a diagnosed illness
  • The identity of Robert Wagner’s alleged male lover
  • The precise sequence of events around Natalie Wood’s 1981 death

The ratio in this section is the real finding: every confirmed fact has a reference, while every unclear item has only a question mark.

Voices

Three perspectives recur in the public record — St John on her career, Wagner on his life with Wood, and the investigators who reopened the case.

She arrived in Hollywood early — a Universal contract as a teenager, a run of 1960s films, and then Tiffany Case, the first American Bond girl. In archival interviews, St John points to the Bond role as the career maker it became.

Jill St John — archival TV interviews

Pieces of My Heart, Wagner’s memoir, traces his adult life around his on-and-off marriage to Natalie Wood: marriage, divorce, remarriage, and the 1981 drowning that closed the story.

Robert Wagner — memoir

When the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reopened the case in 2011, it described the decision as a response to new information — a step that revived public attention without producing a new resolution.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department — public statements on the reopened case

The difference between the three voices is instructive: two memories, one official inquiry, and no final verdict.

The documented story is stable: a Los Angeles birth, five decades of credits, a long marriage, and a legacy built on the first American Bond girl. The undocumented story — wheelchairs, illnesses, unnamed lovers — survives on repetition alone. For anyone searching “Jill St John wheelchair” or “Robert Wagner illness,” the consequence is simple: trust the cited biography, and leave unverified claims unverified until a named source, a doctor, or a court record changes the answer.

Additional sources

news.amomama.com, moviemeter.com

Frequently asked questions

What is Jill St John’s real name?

Jill Arlyn Oppenheim, as recorded in Wikipedia biographical reference. She has been known professionally as Jill St John throughout her acting career.

When and where was Jill St John born?

August 19, 1940, in Los Angeles, California, according to Wikipedia biographical reference.

Which James Bond film featured Jill St John?

Diamonds Are Forever (1971), in which she played Tiffany Case opposite Sean Connery’s James Bond, as documented by Rotten Tomatoes film review aggregator.

Does Jill St John have children?

Publicly documented biographies do not list children from her marriage to Robert Wagner.

What are Jill St John’s best-known films?

Beyond Diamonds Are Forever, her better-known credits include Come Blow Your Horn (1963), Who’s Minding the Store? (1963), Tony Rome (1967), and The Lost World (1960), per Rotten Tomatoes film review aggregator.

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