This fresh-faced former child model made her film debut at age 12, seen in flashbacks as the young incarnation of Elizabeth McGovern’s character in Sergio Leone’s gangster epic “Once Upon a Time in America” (1984). Horror cultists may remember her as the girl who has a peculiar relationship with the insect world in Dario Argento’s Italian fear opus “Creepers” (1985).
Jennifer Connelly subsequently was featured in mostly forgettable teen fare, with the possible exception of Jim Henson’s “Labyrinth” (1986), in which she was overshadowed by David Bowie and a cast of Henson creatures. That same year she was the bright one among a trio of friends–Byron Thomas, Maddie Corman–in the lightweight “Seven Minutes in Heaven”. Connelly traded on her attractive looks as the only innocent among Southern schemers in Dennis Hopper’s thriller, “The Hot Spot” and as the voluptuous town beauty in the teen comedy “Career Opportunities” (both 1990). She was perfectly cast as a 1940s Hollywood starlet who got the guy in “The Rocketeer” (1991; Connelly and co-star Bill Campbell also enjoyed an off-screen relationship as well).
Although she was seemingly on the verge of a major career, Connelly had difficulty finding that one role to catapult her into the public eye. She stopped performing for a while to pursue an Ivy League education and when she decided to resume her career, it was because she had rediscovered a passion for acting. The actress made a rare foray into TV with the 1993 TNT movie “The Heart of Justice”, in which she essayed a femme fatale. John Singleton cast her as an earth mother lesbian in “Higher Learning” (1995) while she opted to play another woman of questionable virtues as Nick Nolte’s doomed mistress in “Mulholland Falls” (1996).
Connelly delivered a fine turn as Eleanor, the self-styled bad girl middle sister of a trio of beauties who all succumb to the charms of the town’s bad boy (Billy Crudup) in “Inventing the Abbotts” (1997). She next undertook the challenging role of a woman who may or may not be real in the sci-fi thriller “Dark City” (1998). After a brief hiatus for motherhood, Connelly returned to the big screen in force with three high profile art-house films in 2000. She was again a woman of mystery, this time a former radical haunting her old lover (Crudup) in “Waking the Dead.” In Darren Aronofsky’s harrowing “Requiem for a Dream”, Connelly played a wannabe fashion designer with a nasty coke habit who willingly submits to debasement in order to score drugs. She also was the other woman in the life of the abstract artist in Ed Harris’ biopic “Pollock.” In addition to her busy film career, Connelly made her debut as a series regular in the short-lived NYC-set serial “The $treet” (Fox, 2000), which purported to be a behind-the-scenes look at a brokerage firm.
The actress had one of her best-reviewed roles as the patient and loving wife of an eccentric math genius diagnosed with schizophrenia (portrayed by Russell Crowe) in “A Beautiful Mind” (2001), loosely based on the real-life relationship between Alicia Nash and her husband, Nobel laureate John Forbes Nash Jr. Connelly racked up numerous end-of-the-year accolades and garnered a well-deserved Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress.
The following year, after a stint out of the spotlight, Connelly portrayed Betty Ross, the tortured love interest in “The Hulk,” an Universal Pictures project based on the Marvel comic book creature the Incredible Hulk in which Ang Lee attempted to graft serious pathos to the rampaging monster–not quite successfully. In a role more suited to her talents, Connelly turned in a riveting performance in “House of Sand and Fog” (2003), playing a troubled, substance abusing woman whose family beach home is wrongfully auctioned off by the government, pitting her in a heated battle of wills against the new owner (Ben Kingsley) with haunting results. Connelly’s complex portrayal resulted in another flurry of critical acclaim and awards buzz. Next was the high class entry into the horror genre “Dark Water” (2005) in which she played a protective single mother who moves into a deliapidated and disturbing apartment house and finds herself tormented by inexplicable events involving dark, shadowy water.
- Also Credited As:
Jennifer Ann Connelly
- Born:
on 12/12/70 in New York, New York
- Job Titles:
Actor, Model
Family
- Father: Gerard Connelly. married once before
- Mother: Eileen Connelly.
- Son: Kai Dugan. born in July 1997; father, David Dugan
Significant Others
- Husband: Paul Bettany. began dating in 2002; met on the set of “A Beautiful Mind”; married c. December 2002 in Scotland
- Companion: Billy Campbell. met on the set of “The Rocketeer” (1991); became engaged in 1991; no longer together
- Companion: David Dugan. father of Connelly’s son; no longer together
- Companion: Josh Charles. dating in 2000; no longer together in 2002
Education
- Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, drama and English, 1988
- Stanford University, Stanford, California
Milestones
- 1984 Acted in first feature, “Once Upon a Time in America”; portrayed Elizabeth McGovern’s character as a child
- 1986 Played a girl trying to rescue her baby brother from Goblin King David Bowie in “Labyrinth”
- 1986 Starred in “Seven Minutes in Heaven”
- 1991 Cast in the female lead of “The Rockateer”
- 1993 TV-movie debut, “The Heart of Justice” (TNT)
- 1995 Portrayed a lesbian college student in “Higher Learning”
- 1996 Played Nick Nolte’s mistress whose death is at the center of a mystery in “Mulholland Falls”
- 1997 Portrayed one of three alluring sisters in the feature “Inventing the Abbotts”; first onscreen teaming with Billy Crudup
- 1998 Co-starred as Rufus Sewell’s estranged spouse in “Dark City”
- 2000 Appeared as the painter’s young mistress in “Pollock”, Ed Harris’ biopic of Jackson Pollock; screened at Venice, Toronto and New York Film Festivals
- 2000 Had featured role in the fall drama series “The $treet” (Fox)
- 2000 Played a drug addicted fashion designer in “Requiem for a Dream”; premiered at Cannes (not in competition)
- 2000 Reteamed with Crudup in the romantic drama “Waking the Dead”; screened at Sundance
- 2001 Co-starred opposite Russell Crowe in the biopic of schizophrenic Nobel Prize winner John Forbes Nash Jr in “A Beautiful Mind”; received Best Supporting Actress Oscar
- 2003 Cast opposite Eric Bana in “The Hulk”, directed by Ang Lee
- 2003 Plays a recovering addict trying to save her home in “House of Sand and Fog”; an adaption of the novel written by Andre Dubus III
- 2005 Starred in the thriller “Dark Water,” directed by Walter Salles
- Began modeling and doing commercials at age ten; continued working as a model until her teens
- Raised in Brooklyn Heights, New York
- Will co-star with Philip Seymour Hoffman for a new adaptation of “Macbeth,” (lensed 2005)
