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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/joy-harmon-dead-cool- hand-luke-woman-washes-car-1236565874/

Joy Harmon, the Woman Who Washed the Car in rCyCool Hand Luke,rCO Dies at 87

She also appeared on Broadway, worked with Groucho Marx on a game show and starred in the films rCyOne Way WahinerCO and rCyVillage of the Giants.rCO

By Mike Barnes

April 15, 2026 3:24pm

Joy Harmon, forever known for her brief turn in the Paul Newman classic
Cool Hand Luke as the young woman who provocatively washes a car with lots
of soapy water as overheated prisoners in the chain gang look on, has
died. She was 87.

Harmon died Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles, her family announced.

Blond, blue-eyed and perpetually tanned, Harmon served as Groucho MarxrCOs assistant on the 1961 CBS game show Tell It to Groucho, then starred as a
girl in Hawaii who gets mixed up in a robbery in the beach party movie One
Way Wahine (1965).

She also showed up on lots of TV shows, from The Beverly Hillbillies, My
Three Sons, BurkerCOs Law, Gidget and Batman to Bewitched, Occasional Wife, That Girl, The Monkees and The Odd Couple.

In an interview with author Tom Lisanti for his 2007 book, Glamour Girls
of Sixties Hollywood, Harmon said her agent told her that she should wear
a bikini to her Cool Hand Luke audition for Newman and director Stuart Rosenberg, so she did.

rCLI remember Paul Newman said to me, rCyGosh, you have the bluest eyes!rCOrCY she
recalled. rCLThey just talked to me, and that was it. It was a small part
with no lines, but I wanted to work with Newman, so when they offered it
to me I accepted.rCY

In her scene in the 1967 film, Harmon, in a tattered housedress, turns on
the portable radio and washes a 1941 DeSoto under a hot sun as if sherCOs making love to a man. (George KennedyrCOs character imagines her name is Lucille.)

rCLStuart was very specific and knew exactly what he wanted,rCY she told Lisanti. rCLI guess you can tell that by the way the scene comes off rCo but I didnrCOt realize it. And I donrCOt think I even realized it right after I did it. There were a lot of things he made me do a certain way rCo soaping the windows, holding the hose rCo that had a two-way meaning. He would tell me
to look different ways, and we kept shooting it over and over again. I
just figured I was washing the car. IrCOve always been na|>ve and innocent. I was acting and not trying to be sexy.rCY

She continued: rCLI never had any inclination that this would be such a memorable role. Except for being in a movie with Paul Newman, I never
expected this part to be so notable and get the reaction it did. After
seeing it at the premiere, I was a bit embarrassed. Of all the things IrCOve done, people know me most from this film.rCY

Born in New York, Joy Patricia Harmon was a child model and a finalist in
a Miss Connecticut pageant, and she made it to Broadway in the 1958-59
comedy Make a Million. In 1960, she was a contestant on the final season
of MarxrCOs You Bet Your Life, leading to her gig on the comedianrCOs follow- up game show.

As a 30-foot-tall woman, Harmon found Johnny Crawford hanging from her
bikini top in Village of the Giants (1965), directed by Bert I. Gordon.

Her big-screen r|-sum|- also included Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963), Roustabout (1964), The Loved One (1965), Young Dillinger (1965) and Angel
in My Pocket (1969).

After she left acting, she worked at Disney Studios and owned a bakery in Burbank, Aunt JoyrCOs Cakes, since 2003. rCLI get fan mail at the house and at the bakery every week and still send back pictures to people,rCY she told Entertainment Weekly in 2017.

Survivors include her children, Jamie, Julie and Jason, and nine grandchildren. She was married to Emmy-nominated producer and film editor
Jeff Gourson (Tron, Quantum Leap) from 1968 until their 2001 divorce.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to help with her medical costs.
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