June Fairchild obit

June Fairchild, the Ajax Lady From 'Up in Smoke,' Dies at 68

She was not on the list.

The actress worked with Nicholson and Eastwood and was the girlfriend of a Three Dog Night.

singer, but things were tough for her in the end.

Actress June Fairchild, who was memorable as the Ajax Lady in Cheech and Chong’s 1978 comedy Up in Smoke before her career – and her life — quickly unraveled, has died. She was 68.

Fairchild, who is given credit for coming up with the unusual name for the band Three Dog Night, died Tuesday of liver cancer at a Los Angeles convalescent home, her friend told the Los Angeles Times.

She battled drug and alcohol addictions as her acting career fell apart and spent time on skid row living in a cardboard box in Los Angeles, the newspaper reported in 2002. She spent her final years in downtown hotels getting by on Social Security disability payments, the Times said.

A prom queen from Manhattan Beach, Calif., Fairchild played a party girl who mistakes Ajax cleanser for cocaine and rapidly snorts lines of the powdery stuff off a paper plate in Up in Smoke.

Earlier, she was one of the comely high school students targeted by an unknown serial killer in Roger Vadim’s Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971), starring Rock Hudson and Angie Dickinson.

Fairchild also appeared in two films written by Jack Nicholson: The Monkees’ comedy Head (1968) and Drive, He Said (1971), a basketball movie that Nicholson also directed. She was in director Michael Cimino’s first film, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), starring Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges, and showed up in Sextette (1978), which was to be her — and Mae West’s — final feature.

Fairchild was the live-in girlfriend of singer Danny Hutton, and, according to commentary included with the 1993 CD set Celebrate: The Three Dog Night Story, 1965–1975, suggested the name for the band after reading an article about indigenous Australians.

She learned that on cold nights, these Australians would sleep in a hole with a dingo (a wild dog) to keep warm. They would need two dogs if it were colder, and if were really cold, then that would be a “three dog night,” Fairchild explained.

Actress

Up in Smoke (1978)

Up in Smoke

6.9

Ajax Lady

1978

 

Sextette (1977)

Sextette

3.8

Woman Reporter

1977

 

The Student Body (1976)

The Student Body

4.6

Mitzi

1976

 

Dirty O'Neil (1974)

Dirty O'Neil

5.0

Hitchhiker

1974

 

Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, and George Kennedy in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

7.0

Gloria

1974

 

Your Three Minutes Are Up (1973)

Your Three Minutes Are Up

6.3

Sandi

1973

 

Detroit 9000 (1973)

Detroit 9000

6.3

Barbara (uncredited)

1973

 

Christopher St. John in Top of the Heap (1972)

Top of the Heap

6.3

Balloon Thrower

1972

 

Michael Douglas in Summertree (1971)

Summertree

5.7

Girl in Dorm

1971

 

Drive, He Said (1971)

Drive, He Said

5.7

Sylvie

1971

 

Rock Hudson and Margaret Markov in Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971)

Pretty Maids All in a Row

6.1

Sonny

1971

 

Head (1968)

Head

6.4

The Jumper

1968

 

Where Angels Go Trouble Follows! (1968)

Where Angels Go Trouble Follows!

6.3

June

1968

 

Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork, and The Monkees in The Monkees (1965)

The Monkees

7.5

TV Series

Party Guest (uncredited)

1966

1 episode