As a devoted admirer, I’m sad to share that Claude Jarman Jr., who won the Juvenile Academy Award for his moving portrayal of the boy adopting an orphaned fawn in the 1946 MGM masterpiece “The Yearling,” passed away this Sunday. He was a remarkable 90 years old.
Jarman passed away peacefully during sleep at his residence in Kentfield, Marin County, California, as confirmed by his wife to Scott Feinberg from THR.
1949 saw Jarman sharing the screen with Jeanette MacDonald in the film “The Sun Comes Up” featuring Lassie. He also appeared as the brother of a fugitive rancher, played by Robert Sterling, in the movie “Roughshod”. Additionally, he worked once again with Clarence Brown, director of “Yearling”, portraying a youngster determined to clear the name of a Black man in the film “Intruder in the Dust”. This film was an adaptation of William Faulkner’s novel and was shot in Oxford, Mississippi.
About a year after that, he took on the role of a cavalry officer’s son in John Ford’s film titled “Rio Grande,” which was released in 1950.
1934 saw the birth of Jarman, who was then a 10-year-old child residing in Nashville, with his father being a railroad accountant. On Valentine’s Day in 1945, Brown, during a casual tour of schools across the southern region, unexpectedly dropped by Jarman’s fifth-grade classroom to search for potential talents for “The Yearling.
A few days after that, they informed him that he would depart for Hollywood a week later, which is what Jarman shared when speaking with Alan K. Rode in 2016 for the Film Noir Foundation.
Quickly, he landed a job to portray Jody Baxter, the solitary son of Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman’s characters, in the film adaptation of The Yearling, originally penned by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, who later won the Pulitzer Prize.
He mentioned that it required approximately two years in Florida to complete the movie, and one particular scene involving a deer necessitated 115 attempts before it could be filmed. As a marketing strategy for the film, he even strolled along Fifth Avenue in New York accompanied by a deer on a leash.
In 1947, Shirley Temple presented Jarman with his Junior Academy Award at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles during the Oscars. This made Jarman the seventh recipient of the small statue. Twelve years prior, Temple had been the first to receive this honor. Later on, the Academy gave him a full-sized Oscar, which he proudly displayed alongside it in his home.
During an interview with the Marina Times in 2014, when asked about his early success, Jarman said, “Since I didn’t have anything to compare it to, I thought, ‘Isn’t this normal for everyone?’ I had a personal dressing room, my own makeup artist, and wardrobe attendant.
He went to school on the MGM studio lot, surrounded by classmates such as Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Powell, Margaret O’Brien, and Dean Stockwell. At the same time, he was filming “Roughshod” at RKO, where he also studied alongside Natalie Wood.
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During his school days on the MGM lot, his classmates included Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Powell, Margaret O’Brien, and Dean Stockwell. Simultaneously, while working on “Roughshod” at RKO, he studied with none other than Natalie Wood.
In the film “High Barbaree” from 1947, produced by MGM, he made an appearance as the youthful portrayal of Van Johnson’s character, a missing pilot at sea, in flashback scenes.
In April 1949, he joined over forty MGM stars such as Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Angela Lansbury, Errol Flynn, Esther Williams, Judy Garland, and even Lassie for a photograph celebrating the 25th anniversary of the studio.
In 1950, Jarman went back to Nashville to complete his high school education. However, before that, in 1952, he made an appearance in the movie “Hangman’s Knot,” which starred Randolph Scott, Donna Reed, and Lee Marvin, and was directed by Roy Huggins. Jarman finished his studies at Vanderbilt University in 1956, coincidentally the same year he was featured in “The Great Locomotive Chase,” a film headlined by Fess Parker.
After returning to Los Angeles as a publicist for the Armed Forces, I worked closely with film studios to create naval-themed movies. In 1963, I transitioned to San Francisco, taking on a role at the John Hancock Insurance Company.
Between 1965 and 1980, Jarman served as the director of the San Francisco International Film Festival. In 2019, he was honored with the festival’s George Gund III Craft of Cinema Award for skillfully using his early acting accomplishments to champion the world of film. His efforts brought together the film industry and the Bay Area community in a way that continues to resonate today.
Additionally, Jarman created a 1972 documentary focusing on music promoter Bill Graham and the Fillmore Auditorium, and he made his final acting appearance in the 1978-79 NBC television series titled “Centennial.
His book, My Life and the Final Days of Hollywood, was published in 2018.
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2025-01-13 04:54