Short answer
- Jeremy Yaffe was the first wife of the actor Alan Arkin and the mother of his two older sons, the actors Adam Arkin and Matthew Arkin. She married Arkin in 1955, performed with him in the children's folk group The Baby Sitters, and divorced him in 1961, before his film career made him famous. Biographical writing about her younger son Matthew describes her as a nurse, and Matthew was raised by her in California for the first years of his life after his parents separated. That outline is what strong sources support, and it is nearly the whole of what they support. Yaffe was a private person rather than a public figure. She gave no known interviews, published nothing under her own name that researchers can point to, and left no memoir. Almost everything else circulating about her online, including an exact birth date, her parents' names, and claims about whether she is still living, comes from celebrity biography websites that copy one another and sometimes contradict one another. This article states the verified outline, names the disagreements plainly instead of smoothing them over, and leaves the rest unstated.
Why So Little Is Reliably Known
Most biographies rest on a paper trail: interviews, reviews, public records, the subject’s own writing. Yaffe left almost none of that in public view. Her public footprint is a supporting role in other people’s stories. She appears in obituaries and profiles of Alan Arkin, in biographies of her sons, and in accounts of a folk group that recorded for a few years in the late 1950s and 1960s. Those sources are good on the points where their subjects overlap with her, and silent on everything else.
That gap has been filled, on the modern web, by biography pages written to answer search questions rather than to report. They supply the details a profile is expected to have, such as a birth date, a birthplace, parents, a height, a net worth, and a current status, whether or not a reliable record supports them. Pages copy pages, so a claim can appear on a dozen sites while resting on nothing. Repetition of that kind is not verification, and this article treats it as a warning sign rather than as evidence.
The Meeting and the Marriage, 1955 to 1961
The strongest reporting agrees on the setting. Alan Arkin studied at Bennington College in Vermont, and a Los Angeles Times account of his life, carried by City News Service, says he married his classmate Jeremy Yaffe. The Guardian obituary of Arkin, republished by The Irish Times, likewise places the marriage in 1955, the year he became active in the folk music scene with the group The Tarriers.
The couple’s two sons followed quickly. Adam Arkin was born on August 19, 1956, and his biographical entry names Alan Arkin and Jeremy Yaffe as his parents. Matthew Arkin was born on March 21, 1960, in Brooklyn, New York, and his biographical entry names her as his mother. The marriage ended in divorce in 1961. The Jewish Virtual Library summary of Arkin’s life gives the marriage the same dates, 1955 to 1961, and Arkin’s New York Times obituary confirms that his first marriage, to Jeremy Yaffe, ended in divorce, without adding detail.
Some secondary pages give a precise wedding date in December 1955. That precision traces back to database entries rather than to the major obituaries, which give only the year. This article therefore uses the year, which is well supported, and treats the exact day as unconfirmed.
The Baby Sitters: Her One Public Credit
Yaffe’s one documented public role was musical. The Baby Sitters was a group that recorded four albums of children’s folk songs between 1958 and 1968. Its original members were the songwriter Lee Hays, the lyricist Doris Willens Kaplan, Alan Arkin on guitar, and his wife, credited as Jeremy Yaffe Arkin. The group’s history rests on firmer ground than most of her biography, because it draws on Doris Willens’s published life of Lee Hays and on AllMusic’s group biography.
The Guardian obituary tells the same story in one line: Arkin formed the children’s group The Babysitters, which also featured Yaffe until their divorce. In 1964, after the divorce, she was replaced in the group by Barbara Dana, Arkin’s second wife. That replacement is a small fact with a useful consequence for readers. Later writing about the group sometimes blurs the two wives into one another, and several of the errors in Yaffe’s online biography start with exactly that blur.
Two Sons, and a Third Who Was Not Hers
Alan Arkin had three sons, and all three became actors. Only two of them were Yaffe’s. Adam and Matthew were the children of the first marriage. Anthony Arkin, born in 1967, was the son of Arkin’s second marriage, to Barbara Dana. The Irish Times obituary states the division exactly: Arkin was survived by two sons, Adam and Matthew, from his first marriage, and a son, Anthony, from his second marriage. The Jewish Virtual Library and the Los Angeles Times account agree, each assigning Anthony to the second marriage.
This matters because it is the point where weaker sources most often go wrong, and where the title of this article earns its keep. Some celebrity biography pages list Anthony among Yaffe’s children, and at least one gives her three sons born between 1956 and 1963, a timeline that cannot be squared with a divorce in 1961 and a second marriage in 1964. The error is not confined to trivia sites. One film news obituary of Arkin credited Barbara Dana with sons Matthew and Anthony, moving Matthew out of Yaffe’s family altogether. When sources disagree this visibly, the answer is to weigh them, not to average them. On this point the obituaries in major newspapers and the reference summaries line up on one side, and the copying sites scatter. The weight of the stronger evidence is clear: Yaffe had two sons, Adam and Matthew.
After the Divorce: Nursing and Privacy
What is known about Yaffe’s later life comes mainly through her younger son. Matthew Arkin’s biographical entry, which draws on a New York Post profile and a New York Times article about him, describes his mother as a nurse and records that, after his parents separated when he was an infant, he was raised by his mother in California until he was seven. He then lived with his father and stepmother in Greenwich Village, New York.
That is a narrow window, and it closes early. Nothing in the strong sources documents where she trained, where she worked, or how long she nursed. Reports in weaker sources that she remarried, and how many times, conflict with one another and are not confirmed by any source of comparable weight, so this article does not repeat a number. Alan Arkin did write a memoir, An Improvised Life, and readers who want to understand how memoirs shape a family’s public story may find our guide to reading memoirs without getting stuck useful. A former husband’s memoir, though, is his account. It is not a substitute for her own voice, and she never published one.
Where the Sources Disagree, Listed Plainly
Readers deserve the disagreements in one place, stated as disagreements.
Her birth. Celebrity biography pages commonly give March 23, 1937, in Massachusetts, to parents named George and Ninna Yaffe. No obituary in a major newspaper and no reference work checked for this article confirms a day, a month, or her parents’ names. One page even gives her mother’s name differently. These details may be true, but they are unverified, and this article does not present them as fact.
Her education. Arkin’s attendance at Bennington College is well documented, and the Los Angeles Times account calls Yaffe his classmate, which supports the common statement that they met there. Detailed claims about what she studied, repeated on biography pages, have no comparable support.
The number of her children. Covered above. Some pages say three and name Anthony; the stronger sources say two and assign Anthony to Arkin’s second marriage.
Her later relationships. Pages disagree on whether she remarried at all, and if so how often. Nothing reliable settles it.
Whether she is still living. Recent biography pages contradict one another outright. Some describe her as living privately in her late eighties. Others state, without evidence a reader can check, that she died in 2022. No major newspaper obituary or family statement confirming either position was found for this article. For a private person, the honest answer is that her current status is not publicly established, and this article asserts neither version.
How to Evaluate a Source About Jeremy Yaffe
The habits that protect a reader here protect them on any thinly documented life.
First, ask who stands behind the claim. An obituary in a national newspaper was edited and can be corrected. An unsigned biography page on a celebrity content site usually cannot be traced to any reporting at all.
Second, follow the claim to its earliest appearance you can find. If ten pages use the same unusual phrasing, they are probably one source copied ten times, not ten confirmations.
Third, check the claim against a timeline you trust. The claim that Yaffe bore a son in 1967 fails at once against the documented divorce in 1961 and second marriage in 1964. Timeline checks catch a large share of biography errors.
Fourth, notice which details a page is most confident about. Pages that give an exact net worth, height, and current address for a person who never courted publicity are telling you about their business model, not about her life.
Fifth, prefer the source that admits limits. Researchers preparing to interview a subject work through a similar discipline, and our guide to how to prepare for an author interview shows the kind of question list that separates what is known from what is merely assumed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Jeremy Yaffe?
She was the first wife of actor Alan Arkin and the mother of actors Adam Arkin and Matthew Arkin. She performed with Arkin in the children’s folk group The Baby Sitters and was later described, in biographical writing about her son Matthew, as a nurse.
When was Jeremy Yaffe married to Alan Arkin?
They married in 1955 and divorced in 1961, according to The Guardian obituary of Arkin, the Jewish Virtual Library summary, and a Los Angeles Times account of his life. Some secondary pages give an exact December 1955 wedding date, but the major obituaries give only the year, so the exact day is unconfirmed here.
How many children did Jeremy Yaffe have?
Two, on the weight of the stronger sources: Adam Arkin, born August 19, 1956, and Matthew Arkin, born March 21, 1960. Pages that credit her with a third son, Anthony, are in error. Anthony Arkin, born in 1967, was the son of Alan Arkin’s second marriage, to Barbara Dana.
Was Jeremy Yaffe a member of The Baby Sitters?
Yes. She was an original member of the children’s folk group, credited as Jeremy Yaffe Arkin, alongside Lee Hays, Doris Willens Kaplan, and Alan Arkin. The group recorded four albums of children’s folk songs between 1958 and 1968, and she was replaced by Barbara Dana in 1964, after the divorce.
What did Jeremy Yaffe do after the divorce?
Biographical writing about her son Matthew describes her as a nurse and records that Matthew was raised by her in California until he was seven. Beyond that, the strong public record is silent. Claims about where she trained or worked, and about later marriages, appear only in sources that contradict one another.
Is Jeremy Yaffe still alive?
It is not publicly established. Recent web biographies contradict one another, some describing her as living privately and others claiming a death in 2022, and no major newspaper obituary or family statement confirming either was found. This article makes no claim either way about a private person’s current status.
Why do websites give different facts about her?
Because most pages about her were not reported. They were assembled from other pages, so errors and invented details travel from site to site and harden into apparent consensus. The facts that survive checking against newspaper obituaries and reference summaries are the short outline given in the Short Answer above.
Sources & references
- The Irish Times, Alan Arkin obituary (The Guardian obituary by Ryan Gilbey, republished): marriage to Jeremy Yaffe in 1955, The Babysitters featuring Yaffe until the divorce, and two sons from the first marriage with a third son from the second. https://irishtimes-irishtimes-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/obituaries/2023/07/08/alan-arkin-obituary-even-at-his-funniest-the-oscar-winning-actor-exuded-gravitas/
- MyNewsLA, Actor Alan Arkin Dies at Age 89 (City News Service account of the Los Angeles Times reporting): Arkin married his classmate Jeremy Yaffe, they had two sons, Adam and Matthew, divorced in 1961, and his next marriage, to Barbara Dana, produced Anthony. https://mynewsla.com/hollywood/2023/06/30/actor-alan-arkin-dies-at-age-89-5/
- Jewish Virtual Library, Alan Arkin: marriage to Jeremy Yaffe, 1955 to 1961, two sons Adam and Matthew, and a son Anthony from the marriage to Barbara Dana. https://jewishvirtuallibrary.org/alan-arkin
- Matthew Arkin, biographical entry (drawing on the New York Post profile of November 17, 1999, and The New York Times, March 5, 2000): son of Jeremy Yaffe, a nurse, and Alan Arkin, born March 21, 1960, raised by his mother in California until age seven. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Arkin
- Adam Arkin, biographical entry: born August 19, 1956, to Alan Arkin and his first wife Jeremy Yaffe, and a childhood member of The Baby Sitters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Arkin
- The Baby Sitters (folk group), group history (drawing on Doris Willens, Lonesome Traveler: The Life of Lee Hays, W. W. Norton, 1988, and AllMusic): original members including Jeremy Yaffe Arkin, four albums from 1958 to 1968, and her replacement by Barbara Dana in 1964. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baby_Sitters_(folk_group)
- EyeForFilm, Alan Arkin dies at 89 (cited as a disagreement example only): this news obituary incorrectly assigns Matthew Arkin to the second marriage, which is why it is used here to show how errors appear even in news coverage, not as support for any fact. https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/news/2023-06-30-alan-arikin-dies-at-89-news-story-by-amber-wilkinson
