Who were Jills parents?
When the show first premiered, viewers were led to believe that Jill was the adopted daughter of Ed and (the deceased) Judith Coleridge. Her biological father’s name, I believe, was said to be “Jim” – he was supposedly a friend of Ed’s whom he met while stationed in Australia in the air force. The story was that, after Jill’s biological parents died, Ed had adopted Jill, who was then a toddler, and brought her to New York. I do not remember anything being said about her biological mother at that time. In 1983, after Ed had long since died, it was revealed that Jill was his biological daughter after all – the product of an extramarital affair with Bess Shelby. (I don’t know who the Jim guy turned out to be.) Bess was written into the show at that time, along with her other daughter, Jill’s half-sister, Maggie. In 1987, Maggie’s brother Ben arrived on the scene also. Maggie eventually married Roger, to whom she was not related by blood, though they were each a half-sibling to Jillian.
