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Jennifer Connelly was born on December 12th, 1970 in the Catskill Mountains of mid-state New York. The same day fellow future actress M?hen Amick was born in Reno, Nevada. They joined the 3.63 billion fellow humans living on the planet that year. As Jennifer entered the world the U.S. was still fighting in Viet Nam, Richard Nixon was ending his second year in the presidency, and the Beatles had just over two weeks left together as a band. Jennifer grew up mainly in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of New York City, just south across the East River from Manhatten. Her family spent some years during her childhood living upstate in Woodstock (where her mother Eileen for a time owned an antique shop) and they also had a home in Bellport, on Long Island. Her father, Gerard, worked in the New York garment industry making children`s clothing.
Jennifer began and ended her primary and secondary schooling at St. Ann`s in Brooklyn, though during her teenage years she sometimes attended classes on the sets of films she was working on. Jennifer`s entry into show business came at the Jennifer Connelly nude age of ten at the suggestion of a family friend who worked in advertising. A strikingly beautiful young girl, she quickly obtained representation from the prestigous Ford Agency and was soon in demand as a model. Jennifer has said that modeling was "really alien" to her and she happily left it behind for film acting when she could: "I was so shy and really didn`t like getting my picture taken". Her modeling assignments often took her to Europe. Her acting debut came in an episode of the British horror-anthology series Tales of the Unexpected (originally called Roald Dahl`s Tales of the Unexpected, the series was hosted by author Dahl from 1979 to 1981, then by John Houseman from 1981-85). Also around this time she had a small part in a Simon Milne directed music video for the Duran Duran song Union of the Snake (released in 1984, it was part of the Dancing on the Valentine video EP and later included on the Decade video anthology).
Jennifer played a member of a subterranean child-cult; the scenes she was in were shot in England, while other parts of the video were shot in Australia. Jennifer has since noted that the video shoot was not a pleasant experience. An audition in 1982 led to her first big-screen role, that of Young Deborah in Italian director Sergio Leone`s sprawling, dreamlike epic Once Upon a Time in America, released in 1984. Jennifer has described the audition for the film as the easiest of her career: "the whole thing took three days, I went and auditioned, went back the next day and met the director, and then went back and met with the director and Robert DeNiro" (Late Night with David Letterman interview, 1991). During her original interview with Leone she was asked to dance . "not being a dancer, I had no idea what to do and I can only imagine how silly it must have looked, whatever it was I did" (Empire Magazine, 1996). The supposed determining factor in her casting was that her nose matched Elizabeth McGovern`s, who played Deborah as an adult. Jennifer spent her twelfth birthday on the set, and has described working on the film as "pretty darn fun". The role of Young Deborah also, notably, became very nearly the archetype for the type of role Jennifer has been most often asked to play throughout her career: the female object of male infatuation and longing. The good experience working on the Leone film gave Jennifer an appetite for more film work. Parts of Once Upon a Time. . . were shot in Rome, and Jennifer returned to Italy for her next part, the starring role in cult horror director Dario Argento`s Phenomena (a.k.a. Creepers, 1984). Argento was a colleague of Sergio Leone`s, and no doubt had been impressed with the young woman`s beauty, poise, and maturity in her first film role. In the 1991 Late Night interview Jennifer remembered that both her mother and grandmother were present at various points Jennifer Connelly nude pics in the film`s making. In a climatic scene Jennifer falls into a watery pit supposedly filled with maggots and dead bodies. The scene upset her grandmother, who commented, "this is what making movies is about?". Argento`s first entirely English language film, it was, like many of the director`s other pictures, stunning visually, but confusing story-wise. The documentary Dario Argento`s World of Horror, made shortly after the release of Phenomena, includes a good deal of behind-the-scenes footage from the latter film, with an emphasis on the special effects scenes (Jennifer appears cheerful but a bit grossed-out during the filming of the "maggot pool" sequence). Jennifer next appeared in low budget Seven Minutes in Heaven (1985) for Zoetrope Studios. Unfortunately, the film was not supported by its studio and received limited distribution. Labyrinth, released in 1986, was a different story. Jennifer was selected after a nation-wide talent search for the lead in this richly produced fantasy directed by "muppeteer" legend Jim Henson and produced by George Lucas. Henson was quoted as saying he knew he`d found his lead the minute she walked in the door for the audition (Labyrinth production notes bio of Jennifer, 1986). Jennifer was featured as Sarah, a part somewhat similar to Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Her co-star was rock star David Bowie, who played the evil Goblin King. Bowie has said that she reminded him of the young Elizabeth Taylor. He also remarked that "she`s. . .a damn good actress and a joy to work with." For her part, Jennifer remembers that she was "impressed by Bowie, but (she) wasn`t into that teenager-rock star kind of thing at all". Much of Jennifer`s original fan following are those who first encountered her in this film. Jennifer has admitted going through some typical teen phases; during one period she did a bit of underage club-hopping, and another saw her "just dressing in black and listening to The Cure and all that" (Rolling Stone 8-8-91). The late eighties saw Jennifer appear in two lesser seen films; she played a ballerina in ?oile (1988), and a self absorbed college freshman in Some Girls (1989). At age eighteen Jennifer found herself re-evaluating her acting career: ". . .in a few years it began to change. I said, `Do I really want to do this? or am I just doing it because Jennifer Connelly nude pictures it came along?` So I took it all apart and put it back together and said, `Yes, I want to be an actor.` (Parade, 2-22-98)" Among those who had noticed her in Some Girls was actor/director Dennis Hopper, who tapped her to play the ingenue role in a film he was planning based on Charles William`s fifties crime novel Hell Hath No Fury. Jennifer remembers "getting along great" with Hopper on The Hot Spot (1990), "we all clicked into a groove in the first ten minutes". The film was shot on location in Austin and Taylor, Texas. Tensions apparently did develop under the surface between Hopper and his star, Don Johnson: during a post-production publicity appearance for the film Hopper referred to the absent Johnson as "a pimple on the ass of mankind" (Jennifer may have felt a bit torn since she`s rumored to have dated Johnson briefly). Whatever their personal conflicts, both Hopper and Johnson did a good job on the film, which was a mixed critical, if not a box office, success (total gross was reported at roughly one and a third million). Jennifer herself publicly described Johnson as a generous actor with whom she got along very well. The relatively high profile role in The Hot Spot got her noticed by the press for more than her acting. Stephen Schaefer in a USA Today article wrote: "Anyone looking for proof that little girls do grow up fast in the movies should take a gander at curvaceous Jennifer Connelly naked opposite Don Johnson in The Hot Spot. Not yet 20, Connelly has neatly managed the transition from child actress to ingenue." Not all that surprisingly, Jennifer was called upon by Hopper to do her first nude scene: "The nudity was hard for me and something I thought about. . .but it`s not in a sleazy context." The quote reflects the sensible manner with which she had approached a number of other such scenes in her career. The nudity wasn`t the only thing she was a bit trepidatious about--she balked a bit at going into the freezing cold water during one of the beach scenes. Johnson solved the problem quickly--he just picked her up and through her in! The same year she made The Hot Spot Jennifer appeared in a music video for the late Roy Orbison`s I Drove All Night. The video was "filmed for two days and two nights in the California desert" (according to notes on the VHS release box cover). Portions of the proceeds from the sales of the single and an album it was included on, Nintendo White Knuckle Scorin`, benefited the Bobby Brooks Literacy Fund (Brooks was a former manager of Orbison`s who died in a helicopter crash; I Drove All Night, which also appeared on his Mystery Girl album, was a posthumous top-ten hit for Orbison). The fall of 1990 saw Jennifer matriculate into Yale as an English major. She had hopes of attending college with anonymity, but to no avail. "I wasn`t going to tell anyone at all, but I had a roomate who`d seen me in Labyrinth and so it was out" (Empire, 9-1996). She found that the mere fact that she had worked in Hollywood made her a cause celebre among her classmates: "you`re more famous than you actually are". Jennifer continued with her film career, which no doubt played havoc with her class work at Yale and eventually led to her transferring out after two years. Career Opportunities, released in 1991, was something of a back-peddle into teen roles for Jennifer. The script was a John Hughes throw away, and the resultant film was almost universally panned. People Magazine complained that Jennifer`s body was "exploited by Gordon (the director) and Hughes in a particularly sleazy, gawking high-school freshman way." David Elmer`s 1996 Empire Magazine article mentioned that she Jennifer Connelly naked pics "professes to despise" her teen romantic comedies; no doubt this film is the main object of disdain. One piece of publicity memorobilia from Career, a cardboard standup of her taken from the mechanical horse scene in the film with Frank Whaley staring at her and the legend "He`s about to have the ride of his life", made her more than a bit uncomfortable. When releasing The Rocketeer in 1991 the Disney Studios publicity department made sure the press knew that Jennifer, the film`s leading lady, had fallen in love and planned to marry her co-star, Bill Campbell. The story was not completely false, they were indeed engaged, though the "official line" these days is that there were never any real marriage plans. By the summer of 1992 they were maintaining separate residences but still spending most of their time together (People, 6-29-92). The relationship in fact didn`t break off completely until around 1995 (around the time of the release of Higher Learning). Of The Rocketeer, Jennifer has been quoted as saying she felt "a bit lost" in the film, and that the emphasis to her was more on the story than on characterization. While the film had grossed $46 million by 1993 (US, 3-1993) and is undoubtedly her highest profile role to date, it was expected to do Indiana Jones-type business and generally deemed a box office failure (the box office winners that summer were Terminator 2 and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves). One amusing note that she let slip on Late Night with David Letterman while publicizing the film was that Campbell, who played The Rocketeer, was himself afraid of flying. Fall, 1992 marked Jennifer`s transfer from Yale to Stanford University in California (her work schedule to date has yet to allow her to gain enough credits for her degree). At Stanford she studied drama with the late Roy London and with Howard Fine and Harold Guskin. Her next few projects would have good intentions to recommend them, if nothing else. The Heart of Justice (1992) was a tale of intrigue and incest among the rich, co-produced by Turner Television and Steven Spielberg`s Amblin Entertainment Television (the director was Brazilian Bruno Barreto, perhaps best known for his wonderful 1978 film Dona Flor and her Two Husband). (Heart reunited her with actor Dermot Mulrooney, who had played one of the antagonists in Career Opportunities; her former director in The Hot Spot, Dennis Hopper, also had a small role). Of Love and Shadows (1994) cast her opposite Antonio Banderas, and gave her one of her better parts to date, that of a well-to-do Chilean woman living under the oppressive Pinochet regime during the 1970`s. 1995 saw her give a typically poised and measured performance as Taryn, a lesbian who is mentor to Kristy Swanson`s character in John Singleton`s college drama Higher Learning. Jennifer has described her character in MulHolland Falls (1996) as "an object of lust". The quote suggests that her part was basically window-dressing, but while she hadn`t much screen time, the plot revolved around her character, Alison Pond. Jennifer played her most explicit sex scenes to date (with Nick Nolte and John Malkovich), telling her grandfather to stay away from the film. Her attitude toward such scenes remained philosophical. In an interview not much later she was quoted as saying: "a love scene is really just like any other scene, besides the Jennifer Connelly naked pictures physical involvement and the awkwardness and wondering where you should put a certain body part." She considered Alison an opportunity to play a character who was unguarded sexually in a way she wasn`t herself: "It was sort of a challenge I wanted to take on, I guess" (USA Today 5-1-96). Mulholland Falls, directed by New Zealander Lee Tamahori (Once Were Warriors), took a somewhat deserved critical drubbing, but as usual Jennifer was seen as one of the bright spots. Around this time she was quoted as saying "I`m still waiting to do the film I`m really proud of and really love". The next year she had a part in Far Harbor, a small budget picture filmed in Sag Harbor, New York (Sag Harbor is a small former whaling village just Northeast of Jennifer`s childhood haunt of Bellport, on Long Island). Inventing the Abbotts (1997) gave Jennifer the opportunity to play an all-out bad girl in a period setting. Abbotts was helmed by Irish director Pat O`Connor (Circle of Friends). Co-producer Ron Howard was quoted as saying that Jennifer gave added dimension to the role: "There are a lot of people who would play the bad-girl role as someone who`s sexy and fun, but at the end of the day just the bad girl. Jennifer managed to escape that. She really made your heart go out to (Eleanor)." Jennifer was trying to keep a lid on her private life after the pressure she felt during her relatively high profile relationship with Bill Campbell. As the publicity for Abbotts heated up, however, there wasn`t much of a way to hide that a new and happy development had taken place in her life: in April she made an appearance on the Rosie O`Donnell Show (along with Ron Howard) and let the world know she was pregnant. In June she gave birth to a son named Kai. The father was her photographer boyfriend Dave Dougan, who she met originally on a rock-climbing expedition in Upstate New York. Today Jennifer continues to keep a low public profile. Staying relatively aloof from the "Hollywood scene", she enjoys outdoor sports, and is said to be a relatively level headed, "normal" person. 1998 saw her appearance in the stylish science fiction film Dark City from The Crow director, Alex Proyas. City, full of startling, low key visuals, had a lengthy four month shoot in Australia. Yet another film with more critical success than box-office, City, like some of her earlier films also, seems to be developing its own cult-following. 2000 has thusfar seen the release of Waking the Dead, which reunited her with Billy Crudup (one of the male leads in Inventing the Abbotts). Dead was directed by Keith Gordon (star of Christine, among other films) and produced by Jodie Foster. Another in the cast is Ed Harris, who will be starring in one of Jennifer`s next projects, a biopic of "action painter" Jackson Pollack, entitled simply Pollack. We should see the release this year of Requiem for a Dream, directed by Darren Aronofsky and based on a novel by Hubert Selby Jr. In addition to these projects Jennifer is making her first venture into series t.v. with a role on The $treet on the Fox network.
Jennifer Connelly filmography
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