Jennifer Beals Age, Biography, Nationality, Family, Career Path and Net Worth

Jennifer Beals is an American actress and former teen model. She made her film debut in My Bodyguard (1980), before receiving critical acclaim for her role in Flashdance (1983), for which she won NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical.

Profile Summary

Early Life and Education of Jennifer Beals

Jennifer Beals was born and raised in the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Jeanne (née Anderson), an elementary school teacher, and Alfred Beals, who owned grocery stores. Beals’ father was African American, and her mother is Irish-American. She has two brothers, Bobby and Gregory. Her father died when Beals was nine, after which she spent a summer at Cheley Colorado Camps in Estes Park, Colorado. Her mother married Edward Cohen in 1981. Beals says her biracial heritage affected her. Of her youth, she says she “always lived sort of on the outside”, with a feeling “of being the other in society”. Beals’ first job was at age 13 at an ice cream store, using her height at the time (she is now 5 ft 8 in [1.73 m]) to convince her boss she was 16 years old.

Two key moments inspired Beals to pursue a career in acting—working on her high school’s production of Fiddler on the Roof and seeing Balm in Gilead (with Joan Allen) while volunteer-ushering at the Steppenwolf Theatre.

Beals graduated from Francis W. Parker School in Chicago, then participated in Goodman Theatre Young People’s Drama Workshop. She graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in American Literature in 1987. While at Yale, Beals was a resident of Morse College. She deferred a term so she could perform in the feature film Flashdance.

Professional Life of Jennifer Beals

Beals had a minor role in the 1980 film My Bodyguard, then came to fame with her starring part in Flashdance. The third-highest grossing U.S. film of 1983, Flashdance is the story of 18-year-old Alex, a welder by day and sensual dancer by night, whose dream is to be accepted someday at an illustrious school of dance. Beals was cast for this key role while still a student at Yale. She was nominated for a Golden Globe and the film received an Academy Award for Best Song. Many of Beals’s elaborate dance moves were actually performed by dance double Marine Jahan. Gymnast Sharon Shapiro performed the flips as a body double for actress Beals.

After she filmed Flashdance, Beals resumed her studies, making only one film during that time: playing the titular character The Bride with singer-actor Sting, a gothic horror film loosely based on the 1935 classic Bride of Frankenstein, shot during her summer break. She also appeared as Cinderella in the eponymous episode of Faerie Tale Theatre, opposite Matthew Broderick. Beals was asked by Joel Schumacher to do St. Elmo’s Fire but turned it down, preferring to stay at Yale.

After graduating from Yale in 1987, Beals resumed her acting career, playing the love interest in the boxing film Split Decisions opposite Craig Sheffer. Starring opposite Nicolas Cage, she portrayed a lusty and thirsty vampire in 1989’s Vampire’s Kiss.

Jennifer Beals Net Worth

As of April 2023, Jennifer has an estimated net worth of$10 million. She had acquired her major earning from her famous and numerous films, which have made her be worth a fortune.

Conclusion

Beals has appeared in several notable films including Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), The Last Days of Disco (1998), Roger Dodger (2002), The Book of Eli (2010), and Before I Fall (2017). On television, she starred as Bette Porter on the Showtime drama series The L Word (2004–2009) and later went on to star in the series The Chicago Code (2011), Proof (2015), Taken (2017), and The Book of Boba Fett (2021). She reprised her role as Bette Porter in The L Word: Generation Q beginning in December 2019.