Jennifer Connelly was raised by her parents, Gerard, a clothing retailer, and Eileen, an antiques dealer. Aside from the four years her family spent in Woodstock, New York, Jennifer grew up in Brooklyn Heights, just across the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan. She attended Saint Ann school in Brooklyn Heights, and at ten years of age, a family friend suggested to her parents that they should take her to a modelling audition. Not surprisingly, she soon began appearing in newspaper and magazine ads, and then onto commercials. For a while she attended Yale University, but quit after a year in order to pursue her acting career full time.
      Feature films quickly followed when a casting director introduced her to Sergio Leone, who was seeking to fill the role of a young girl to dance in his gangster epic, Once Upon A Time In America. She followed up this role in a variety of film genres including, Creepers, The Rocketeer, the ensemble piece, Inventing The Abbotts, Waking The Dead with Billy Crudup, and the disturbing Requiem for A Dream, opposite screen great, Ellen Burstyn.
      Jennifer has also appeared in music videos, and she herself released a single in Japan entitled, Monologue Of Love, which she sang in Japanese [She is fluent in Italian and French]. Closer to home, fans can catch her hauntingly smooth vocals in the sci-fi thriller, Dark City, opposite William Hurt.
      She lives in Manhattan with her son, Kai, whom she had with former boyfriend, photographer, David Dugan. "Motherhood," she told US Weekly, "is the best work I've ever done."
Photo: 2005 © Touchstone Pictures - Bio by ThespianNet.Com ©2002