Norris Church Mailer

Painter, model, and writer; Mailer's sixth and last wife. Born Barbara Jean Davis in Arkansas, she met Mailer in March 1975 through his army friend Fig Gwaltney, moved with him to Brooklyn that December, and married him in 1980; they remained together until his death in 2007.

Norris Church Mailer — born Barbara Jean Davis in Atkins, Arkansas — was a painter, model, and writer, and Mailer’s sixth and last wife. She met Mailer in March 1975 in Arkansas, introduced by his army friend Francis “Fig” Gwaltney; in December 1975 Mailer separated from Carol Stevens and began living with Norris and her young son Matthew in Brooklyn. The two married in 1980 (in the much-noted single week of Mailer’s marital reshuffle) and remained together until his death in 2007.

A painter, she drew the jacket portrait of Henry Miller for Mailer’s Genius and Lust (76.12) in 1976. Adopting the name “Norris Church” for her modeling and painting, she later published the novels Windchill Summer (2000) and Cheap Diamonds (2007) and the memoir A Ticket to the Circus (2010). She died of cancer in November 2010.

Stub created during the 1975 ingest; expanded with publicly established facts.

Related pages

• Francis Irby "Fig" Gwaltney | Carol Stevens | Matthew Norris Mailer | 1975
• Genius and Lust: A Journey through the Major Writings of Henry Miller (76.12)

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Last updated: 2026-06-04