Her next movie was the 1991 romantic comedy Career Opportunities, in which she starred along with Frank Whaley. In the 1990 Dennis Hopper-directed The Hot Spot, she played Gloria Harper, a woman blackmailed by Frank Sutton, portrayed by William Sadler. Connelly starred in several obscure films, such as the 1988 Etoile, which was never released in the United States, one of the less successful in her career, and the Michael Hoffman-directed Some Girls, in which she portrayed the college student Gabby. She starred as Jennifer Corvino in Phenomena under the direction from Italian giallo master Dario Argento. The film disappointed at the box office, but became a cult classic in later years with a large fan base still in existence. She played Sarah, a teenager on the quest to rescue her little brother Toby, from goblin's world, ruled by King Jareth, portrayed by David Bowie. She did not graduate.Ĭonnelly became a star with her next picture, the 1986 fantasy film Labyrinth. Balancing work and school, she enrolled at Yale University where she studied English and Drama for the two following years, before transferring to Stanford University to train in classical Theater and improvisation with Roy London, Howard Fine, and Harold Guskin. She next starred in Italian horror-director Dario Argento's 1985 film Phenomena in the coming-of-age movie Seven Minutes in Heaven. All these appearances led to movie auditions and her first film role was as Deborah Gelly, a supporting role in Sergio Leone's 1984 gangster epic, Once Upon a Time in America, filmed mostly in 1982 when she was eleven. From 1986 to 1992, she appeared in several issues of the Seventeen Magazine as well as in Japanese magazine "Roadshow" and on December 1986, recorded the pop single “Monologue of Love” singing in phonetic Japanese. In 1984, she appeared in Duran Duran's concept concert video Arena (An Absurd Notion).
At the age of ten, Connelly's career started in newspaper and magazine ads, then moved to television commercials. She received the representation from the Ford modeling agency. Ann's private school, except for the four years the family spent living in Woodstock, New York.One of her father's friends was an advertising executive, who suggested that she should audition in order to become a child model. Connelly was raised in Brooklyn Heights, near the Brooklyn Bridge, and attended St. Her father was Roman Catholic, and of Irish and Norwegian descent her mother was Jewish, a descendant of emigrants from Russia and Poland, and was schooled in a yeshiva. During her career, various magazines, including Time, Vanity Fair, and Esquire have named her on their lists of the most beautiful women.Ĭonnelly was born in the Catskill Mountains of New York state, the daughter of Ilene, an antiques dealer, and Gerard Connelly, a clothing manufacturer. Other film appearances include the 2003 Marvel superhero film Hulk, the 2005 thriller drama Dark Water, Blood Diamond, The Day the Earth Stood Still and the romantic comedy He's Just Not That Into You.Since 2005, Connelly has served as Amnesty International Ambassador for Human Rights Education for the United States. In 2002, Connelly won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, as well as the BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for the 2001 biopic A Beautiful Mind.
Although starring as early as a teenager in films such as Labyrinth and Career Opportunities, she gained critical acclaim following her work in the 1998 science fiction film Dark City and the 2000 drama Requiem for a Dream. She made her motion picture debut in the 1984 crime film Once Upon a Time in America. Jennifer Lynn Connelly (born December 12, 1970) is an American film actress and former child model.