Jennifer Beals Movies and Career Information

Jennifer Beals (born December 19, 1963) is an American actress and a former teen model. She is known for her roles as Alexandra "Alex" Owens in the 1983 film Flashdance, and as Bette Porter on the Showtime drama series The L Word. She earned an NAACP Image Award and a Golden Globe Award nomination for the former. She has appeared in more than 50 films. Beals was born on the southside of Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Jeanne, an elementary school teacher, and Alfred Beals, who owned a grocery store. Her father was African-American and her mother is Irish American. She has two brothers, Bobby and Gregory. Her father died when Beals was ten years old, and her mother remarried, to Edward Cohen. Beals has said her biracial heritage had some impact on her, as she "always lived sort of on the outside", with an idea "of being the other in society". She graduated from the progressive Francis W. Parker School. Beals also was chosen to attend the elite Goodman Theatre Young People's Drama Workshop. Beals attended Yale University, receiving a B.A. in American literature in 1987. While at Yale, Beals was a resident of Morse College. Beals had a minor role in the 1980 film My Bodyguard, then