Harmon died on Tuesday, April 14 at age 87, PEOPLE has confirmed
Credit: Warner Brothers-Seven Arts/Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- Joy Harmon is best known to audiences for her role as Lucille in Cool Hand Luke
- In a 2024 appearance on the Vanguard of Hollywood podcast, Harmon talked about getting the role and shooting the film
- Harmon died on Tuesday, April 14 at age 87
Joy Harmon's experience on the Cool Hand Luke set was far from the usual.
In a 2024 interview with the Vanguard of Hollywood podcast, the actress, who died on Tuesday, April 14 at age 87, looked back at her most memorable role, as Lucille, The Girl, who sensuously washed a car in an iconic scene in the 1967 film.
"I had to go to Warner Brothers with my agent. My agent at that time was a man from France, so he would always go with me, but he didn't come into the audition, but I had to wear a bikini. So, I had a coat over a bikini, and Paul Newman and the director and the producer were there. I didn't know anything. I just didn't have lines, and so I just talked to them, and then I got the part," she said.
"I had to go up to Stockton, and my dad couldn't go because he was busy working, so he was in touch with me constantly, and I flew up by myself. Then the next day, I did the movie, but there was a rule that the wives or girlfriends could not be on set. They wanted the guys not to be around women for a long time, so they couldn't talk to me, the cast. They just kept them separate, because they wanted their reaction, I guess."
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
"I saw Paul Newman when I got there, but when it started shooting, I never saw him, and I worked just with the director, and that's about it. I just did it, and I thought, 'Oh, you know, there's no lines.'"
"But to this day, I don't know how many years ago that is, but I still get fan mail and people that stop in the bakery just to say hi, I don't know how they know about my bakery, but that's how it works, and they send me pictures and I sign them, and it's not just Cool Hand Luke, but other movies, but basically, it's Cool Hand Luke."
Harmon was married to filmmaker Jeff Gourson from 1968 to 2001; the pair shared three children, Jason, Julie and Jamie. She pivoted from Hollywood to baking in 1973 after sharing treats she had baked with coworkers on film sets, including Groucho Marx. Harmon was working at her Burbank bakery, Aunt Joy's Cakes, up until the day before she was hospitalized.
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!'”
Gourson confirmed Harmon's death in a statement exclusive to PEOPLE. He shared that Harmon "died peacefully and surrounded by family."
"She was a wonderful person, who always loved baking," Gourson said, "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."
"She 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."
Read the full article here
