'He made everybody cry': Nashville's Oscar-winning star, Claude Jarman Jr., dies at 90 (2025)

The blond kid's hair bounced when he ran, and his Nashville accent was just thick enough.

Claude Jarman Jr. was in fifth grade when Hollywood director Clarence Brown showed up in his class at Eakin Elementary School. Brown plucked 10-year-old Jarman from hundreds of boys he had scouted in the South. The director brought Jarman to Hollywood, worked for two years teaching him how to deliver dialogue and emote on screen and made him the star of a film called "The Yearling."

In 1947, Jarman won an Oscar for his performance as Jody, a boy who befriends a deer in the woods. Frank Sinatra once recognized Jarman in a restaurant and said he was the boy who "made everybody cry." The statuette was presented at the 19th Academy Awards ceremony by Shirley Temple, the best-known child star in the world.

Claude Jarman Jr., an actor, insurance man, author, film-festival president and friend to some of the biggest stars in Hollywood history, died Jan. 12 at his home in Kentfield, California, at age 90. He is survived by his wife, Katie, seven children, eight grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

'He made everybody cry': Nashville's Oscar-winning star, Claude Jarman Jr., dies at 90 (1)

A private service at the Woodlawn Memorial Park in Nashville is planned for April, and Katie Jarman said family plans to eat at Jimmy Kelly's Steakhouse (Claude's favorite) after the funeral.

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"When people say, 'What a life,' that's an understatement," Katie Jarman said in a phone interview, sharing her husband's stories of parties with Gregory Peck, photos with John Wayne and travels alongside San Francisco 49ers football coach Bill Walsh. "He was extremely comfortable in his own skin."

His daughter, Natalie, said Claude "commanded a lot of attention."

"He was kind and funny and charming," she said.

The son of a railroad accountant, Claude Jarman Jr. was born in Nashville. He had giant blue eyes and a smile that could make you say "ah."

'He made everybody cry': Nashville's Oscar-winning star, Claude Jarman Jr., dies at 90 (2)

Because he was so young when he started acting, he had to take classes at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's two-room school house in Hollywood, with classmates like Elizabeth Taylor, Dean Stockwell, Margaret O'Brien and Jane Powell.

In "The Yearling," Jarman played Jody Baxter, the son of Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman, who are living on a Florida farm on the edge of the woods in 1878 when Jody finds a baby deer he wants to keep as a pet. He agrees to release the deer, named "Flag," back into the wild when it grows up.

The film may be one of the weepiest kid-animal pictures of all time. We won't spoil anything, but let's just say there are bears, rattlesnakes and people who want to see the end of poor Flag. One reviewer called the film "an emotional experience seldom equaled," and Hollywood tapped into that same well of tears 10 years later when it made "Old Yeller" with a different boy and a different animal.

After Shirley Temple presented Jarman with the Academy Juvenile Award, then 13-year-old stood in front of the microphone and said, "Thank you."

"This is about the most exciting thing that can happen to anybody," he said. "I wanted to thank Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for all they've done for me, and Mr. Sidney Franklin for letting me play 'Jody,' and Mr. Clarence Brown for picking me out of my schoolroom and bringing me here, and Miss Lillian Burns at the studio who has helped me so much. And to all of you for liking me. I'm very proud and grateful."

Years later, Jarman took his children to visit Shirley Temple, who had two Oscars on her piano. One was the smaller "Juvenile" award, and one was the full-sized statuette. Natalie Jarman said her father was intrigued.

Katie Jarman remembers the day Claude called Temple and asked her how she got the full-sized Oscar. She explained all he had to do was ask the Academy.

"One day we came home and there was a box sitting on the front porch," Katie Jarman said.

Claude Jarman Jr. only made 11 films, 10 of them between 1946 and 1956 (plus, one small role in a 1979 TV series called "Centennial"). He appeared in a couple of classics, including "Intruder in the Dust," which was lauded for its positive portrayals of Black characters. He also was in "Rio Grande," a John Ford film in which Jarman played the son of John Wayne's Captain Kirby Yorke.

'He made everybody cry': Nashville's Oscar-winning star, Claude Jarman Jr., dies at 90 (3)

In 2018, he wrote a book called "My Life and the Final Days of Hollywood."

Jarman liked making movies, especially westerns, but he didn't like what actors had to do after the films were finished: Talk about them.

"He saw (movies) wasn't where he wanted his life to lead," Katie Jarman said. "He was an introvert. He wasn't a good public speaker. He hated self-promotion."

Occasionally, he would drop back into his former life. In 1991, he attended the Oscars and saw Gregory Peck at a pre-party.

"Gregory Peck introduced him to his wife Veronique," Katie Jarman said. "He said, 'This is my son.'"

As a child, Jarman played football at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville and continued going back and forth to Hollywood until he was about 19. Then, he dropped out of Hollywood and studied history at Vanderbilt University.

"Nashville was his heart," Natalie Jarman said.

He also loved the Bay Area in California. That's where he befriended 49ers Super Bowl-winning coach Bill Walsh and became president of the San Francisco Film Festival. He may not have like to self-promote, but he did like to lure stars to the event.

Natalie Jarman said she remembers parties at her house with international stars like director Francois Truffaut and actors Catherine Deneuve and Liv Ullman. She remembers once looking on her couch and seeing actress Jacqueline Bisset, infamous football star O.J. Simpson and author Sidney Sheldon having a conversation.

'He made everybody cry': Nashville's Oscar-winning star, Claude Jarman Jr., dies at 90 (4)

But when Natalie asked her father about the most important thing in life, he said it was "peace of mind."

"He was always ahead of the curve − a loving, honorable, great man," Natalie said.

'He made everybody cry': Nashville's Oscar-winning star, Claude Jarman Jr., dies at 90 (2025)
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