The Tragic Real-Life Story Of Phil Hartman

Publish date: 2024-05-02

Phil Hartman's adulthood love life was certainly active, and as is often the case, incredibly troubled: The actor was married three times. Shortly after moving to Southern California in the late '60s, a barely adult Hartman met 19-year-old Gretchen Lewis on the beach. They married in 1970 but were divorced by 1972. 

Then in 1982, Hartman approached a woman in a Los Angeles club named Lisa Jarvis (pictured). They danced, and within the week, they went out for sushi and attended a wedding in Santa Barbara together. By the end of the year, they were married and honeymooning in Santa Barbara. This marriage didn't last, either. "My sense of Phil was that he was really two people," Jarvis told ABC News. "As time goes by, you understand that his personas are his protection, and [they] are his personality." 

The couple returned to Santa Barbara in 1983 to celebrate their one-year wedding anniversary, and when Hartman spurred his wife's bedroom advances, she knew it was over. And before long, the couple divorced. Hartman went on to marry a swimsuit model and aspiring actress named Brynn Omdahl, and they had their first child together, a son named Sean, in 1988. Jarvis sent the Hartmans a congratulatory card, to which an enraged Omdahl replied to with a fiery note of her own. "The gist of it was, 'Don't ever f***ing get near me or my family, or I will hurt you," Jarvis recalled.

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