[citation needed] Gillie made no films in 1941 or 1942, but returned to the screen in 1943 in a straight dramatic role as one of the lead players in Leslie Howard's wartime propaganda piece The Gentle Sex.

1944 saw Gillie starring in the whimsical propaganda drama Tawny Pipit, while her last British film Flight from Folly (1945) marked a return to comedy.

[citation needed] During the war, Gillie met American film director Jack Bernhard while he was on military service and stationed in Britain.

A contemporary reviewer commented: "It's been a long time since the screen has seen a more sinister feminine character than the one which Jean Gillie plays in Decoy"[4] The film was a Poverty Row production from Monogram Pictures, fading from view after its original cinema run and remaining little-known and largely unseen for many years.

[citation needed] Gillie returned to Britain in 1948 but had no time to revive her British career, as she died of pneumonia on 19 February 1949, aged 33.