Jennifer Connelly

Jennifer Lynn Connelly (born December 12 1970) is an Academy Award-winning American film actress and former child model. Although she has been working in the film industry since she was a teenager and catapulted to fame on the basis of her appearances in films like Labyrinth and Career Opportunities, she did not receive critical acclaim for her work until the 2000 drama Requiem for a Dream, and the 2001 biopic A Beautiful Mind, for which she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

Early life

Connelly was born in the Catskill Mountains, New York to Eileen, an antiques dealer, and Gerard Connelly, who worked in the garment industry. Connelly's paternal grandfather was Irish American and her paternal grandmother was a Norwegian American; her maternal grandparents were Jewish, their families having come from Russia and Poland. Connelly was raised in Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn near the Brooklyn Bridge, attending St. Ann's School, except for four years the family spent living in Woodstock, New York. One of her father's friends was an advertising executive, who suggested that she audition at a modeling agency. At the age of 10, her career started in newspaper and magazine ads, then moved to television commercials.
Her first film role was as "young Deborah Gelly," a small part in Sergio Leone's 1984 gangster epic, Once Upon a Time in America. She next starred in Italian horror director Dario Argento's Phenomena (1985) and in the coming-of-age movie Seven Minutes in Heaven.

Early career

Connelly became a star on her next picture, the fantasy Labyrinth (1986) playing Sarah, a teenager who wishes her baby brother into the world of goblins ruled by goblin king Jareth (David Bowie). The film underperformed at the box office, but enjoys a cult following today.
Connelly seemed stuck as to how to follow up on this success. She made a Japanese pop record and starred in several obscure films, such as Etoile (1988) and Some Girls (1988). The Dennis Hopper-directed The Hot Spot (1990) was underwhelming, both critically and commercially. Another film, Career Opportunities, was more successful and is considered a teen cult classic. It and Hot Spot threatened to typecast her in the "sexpot" stereotype with both films emphasizing her voluptuous figure, particularly Hot Spot which contained her first topless scene. It would be the first of seven movies in which she appeared nude.
Connelly was featured on the cover of Esquire in August 1991, as part of the "Women We Love" feature.
She began studying English at Yale, and two years later transferred to Stanford.
The big-budget Disney film The Rocketeer (1991) similarly failed to ignite Connelly's career; after its failure she took some time off from acting.
The 1996 indie film Far Harbor played her against type and hinted at a much broader range than she had previously shown. Connelly began to appear in smaller but well-regarded films, such as 1997's Inventing the Abbotts and 2000's Waking the Dead. She played a collegiate lesbian in John Singleton's 1995 ensemble drama, Higher Learning. The critically favored 1998 science fiction film Dark City afforded her the chance to work with such actors as Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Ian Richardson and Kiefer Sutherland. Connelly revisited her ingenue image, though in a more understated way, for the 2000 Jackson Pollock biopic Pollock, in which she played Pollock's mistress.

Breakthrough

Arguably, Connelly's big breakthrough was the 2000 film Requiem for a Dream. Connelly starred alongside Jared Leto and Marlon Wayans as heroin addicts on the edge of a breakdown. The film firmly established her as a serious actress.
Connelly next starred in Ron Howard's film A Beautiful Mind (2001), essaying the role of Alicia Nash, the long-suffering wife of the brilliant, schizophrenic mathematician John Nash, (played by Russell Crowe.) The film was a critical and commercial success and earned Connelly an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her appearance in A Beautiful Mind led to a featured article in TIME magazine.
Connelly starred in two films in 2003: Hulk and House of Sand and Fog. Hulk was something of a box office disappointment, but afforded Connelly the chance to work with noted director Ang Lee. House of Sand and Fog, based on the novel by Andre Dubus III, was reminiscent of much of her independent film work of the late 1990s. Connelly appeared in the 2005 horror film Dark Water, which was based on a Japanese film. She recently starred in an adaptation of the novel Little Children alongside Kate Winslet. Though her role as Kathy Adamson was very important in the novel, the director gave her character less screen time, instead focusing on the characters played by Winslet and Patrick Wilson. She also plays a journalist in Blood Diamond opposite Leonardo DiCaprio.
She turned down the leading role in The Ring due to scheduling conflicts. She also turned down the role of Katherine Thorn in The Omen because the original movie disturbed her. The role of Veronica in Heathers was written with her in mind but she turned it down. She also lost out at the last minute to Ione Skye in Cameron Crowe's Say Anything.
As of now she is on set filming Reservation Road with Mark Ruffalo, planned for release in the fall of 2007.

Personal life

Connelly is married to the English actor Paul Bettany (born 1971), whom she met while working on A Beautiful Mind. The couple's son, Stellan (named after actor Stellan Skarsgård), was born on August 5, 2003. She also has a son, Kai (born 1997), from her relationship with photographer David Dugan.