Jennifer Jason Leigh Movies
A professional actor since the age of nine, Jennifer Jason Leigh earned her Screen Actors Guild card at 16 and dropped out of high school to study at the Lee Strasberg Institute and star in seedy made-for-TV movies. Born to actor Vic Morrow and writer/actress Barbara Turner in Hollywood, CA, Jennifer picked up the middle name Jason from family friend Jason Robards Jr. Throughout her career, she has made a name for herself portraying helpless, damaged, or mentally unsound characters, often performing at a higher level than the material. Also known for extensively researching her roles, Leigh dropped down to less than 90 pounds for one of her first features as an anorexic teenager in the TV-movie The Best Little Girl in the World. Never one to shy away from touchy subject matter, her breakthrough role came in 1982 as the naïve high school girl who gets an abortion in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. After a decade of developing a repertoire of various troubled characters, she was nominated for two Critics Circle awards in 1990 for playing prostitutes in both Miami Blues and Last Exit to Brooklyn. She would continue to play vulnerable characters in dangerous situations as the rookie narcotics officer-turned-drug addict in Rush. This was followed by her notorious role as the psycho roommate Hedra who tries to steal the identity of her roommate (Bridget Fonda) in Single White Female. She played a phone sex worker in the ensemble film Short Cuts, her first of three projects involving director Robert Altman. Leigh occasionally stepped out of her down-and-out roles, and in 1994 she shined as Amy Archer in The Hudsucker Proxy. Her comic turn as a plucky undercover journalist was said to recall the work of legendary actresses like Katharine Hepburn and Barbara Stanwyck. She delivered critically acclaimed performances in her next two films, with a Golden Globe nomination for Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle and an Independent Spirit nomination for Georgia. After playing an angry daughter in Dolores Claiborne, a spitfire kidnapper in Kansas City, and a domestic violence survivor in Bastard out of Carolina, she took another dramatic turn toward a period film. In Agnieszka Holland's Washington Square, Leigh proved her range by portraying a shy, clumsy girl as she evolves into adulthood. She returned to more showy roles for two films dealing with Shakespeare's King Lear: A Thousand Acres with Jason Robards Jr. and the fourth Dogme 95 film, The King Is Alive. Not limiting herself to dramas, Leigh appeared as an isolated computer programmer in David Cronenberg's thriller eXistenZ and as an over-the-top mom in the comedy Skipped Parts. Around that time, she also appeared on-stage in Broadway and off-Broadway plays, most notably as dancer Sally Bowles in Cabaret. Testing out new ground in 2001, she and fellow Cabaret star Alan Cumming wrote, directed, and starred in the ensemble comedy The Anniversary Party, a digital video project inspired by Dogme 95. Continuing to evolve as a respected actress, she went on to work in the crime genre, first as a hitman's wife in Road to Perdition, and then in Jane Campion's thriller In the Cut. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide- 1983
The 55-minute made-for-TV drama Just Like Us is of interest primarily because of one of its stars. Two young women live in starkly opposite social circles. Fate brings the girls together. Both overcome prejudices over how the "other half" lives. Costars Jennifer Jason Leigh and Kari Michaelsen are equally fine, though only Leigh went on to lasting stardom. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Based on Charles McCarry's 1979 novel The Better Angels, Wrong is Right is set in a near future in which violence has become something of a national sport and television news has fallen to tabloid depths (a significantly bigger stretch in 1982, when the film was released.) Star Sean Connery plays Patrick Hale, a globe-trotting reporter with access to a staggering array of world leaders. As the film opens, he has ventured to the Arab country of Hegreb to interview his old acquaintance, King Ibn Awad (Ron Moody). Awad has learned that the President of the United States (George Grizzard) may have issued orders for his removal; as a result, {%Awad) is apparently making arrangements to deliver two mini-nuclear devices -- each about the size of a small suitcase -- to a terrorist, with the intention of detonating them in Israel and the United States, unless the President resigns. In the intricate plot that unfolds, nothing is quite the way it seems, and Hale finds himself caught between political leaders, revolutionaries, CIA agents and other figures, trying to get to the bottom of it all. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sean Connery, George Grizzard, (more)
- 1982
After running away with her boyfriend, a teenager is searched for by her mother and an old friend in San Diego. ~ All Movie Guide
Amy Heckerling's adaptation of Cameron Crowe's Fast Times at Ridgemont High is often considered one of the finest films of a disreputable genre (the teen sex comedy), and kick-started the careers of many future stars. The center of this ensemble film is Jennifer Jason Leigh as Stacy Hamilton. She is a young, innocent high-school student who, as the film opens, is asking for advice from her friend, the sexually outspoken Linda Barrett (Phoebe Cates). Stacy takes a liking to nebbish Mark Ratner (Brian Backer), but he is too afraid to make a move even after Stacy all but throws herself at him. She eventually hooks up with Mark's more confident best friend, Mike Damone (Robert Romanus). When not concerning itself with these four characters, the film spends time with stoned surfer dude Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn) and his ongoing feud with history teacher Mr. Hand (Ray Walston). The film includes brief appearances by such future stars as Nicolas Cage, Eric Stoltz, and Forest Whitaker. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, (more)
In this slasher film, Lauren Tewes stars as a TV anchorwoman whose deaf, dumb and blind teen sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is the next target of a killer. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lauren Tewes, Jennifer Jason Leigh, (more)
- 1981
After allegedly stealing a customized van, 17-year-old Randy Webster (Gary McCleery) is chased down by the Houston police. Randy is killed in a car crash; on his body is found a weapon, supposedly the one used in the commission of the van theft. But Randy's father (Hal Holbrook) suspects that the "official" story of his son's death is the result of a cover-up. The elder Webster attempts to conduct his own investigation despite hostility from an hostile police department and an overcrowded judicial system. Throughout his ordeal, Webster remains convinced that his son was not a criminal, but was set up posthumously by the overzealous authorities. Based on journalist Tom Curtis' s account of a true incident, The Killing of Randy Webster was originally telecast on March 11, 1981. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1981
While on furlough, Jim-Bob (David W. Harper) is pursued by an impulsive lass named Kathy (played by a very young Jennifer Jason Leigh), who insists that she is pregnant--and that Jim-Boy is the father. And half a world away, Ben (Eric Scott) is having a great deal of difficulty curbing his rebellious streak as he sits out the war in a Japanese POW camp. It can be argued that the problems of both Walton brothers are resolved by episode's end--though one of them still has a long way to go before he's completely out of the woods. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1981
A young girl's dangerous dance with dieting leads to near disaster in this exceptional made-for-television drama. In one of the earliest treatments of the subject, Jennifer Jason Leigh stars as Casey Powell, the quiet daughter of an overbearing mother and milquetoast father. Feeling pressure to be the good girl of the family after her troublesome older sister gets pregnant, Casey retreats into her secretive world of self-starvation. When arguing fails to produce results, her parents (Charles Durning and Eva Marie Saint) send her to a hospital where she meets a spunky fellow patient (Melanie Mayron) and a caring therapist (Jason Miller). Casey's road to recovery is not as simple as merely eating though, and she and her family realize that together they must confront the deeply-rooted familial issues that lay at the heart of Casey's affliction. Jennifer Jason Leigh is utterly compelling in the lead role. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
- 1980
Angel City plays like a Grapes of Wrath updated to the 1980s. Ralph Waite plays a West Virginia farmer who, faced with the prospect of starving to death on his unproductive land, packs up his family and moves to the so-called Promised Land of Florida. There he goes to work on what is euphemistically called a collective farm. But soon he finds himself surrounded in squalor and misery, working back-breaking hours for slave-labor wages. Paul Winfield, Jennifer Warren and Mitchell Ryan co-star in this made for TV movie, which debuted November 12, 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Joe D'Amato, notorious director of numerous Euro-porn epics, manages to exploit even more perverse theme material in this necrophiliac love story about a disturbed young taxidermist so bereaved over the loss of his fiancee that he exhumes and preserves her corpse to keep him company. When the stuffed cadaver no longer offers erotic satisfaction, he sets out with the help of his spooky housekeeper to find a new bride, murdering any prospects who don't measure up to his twisted standards -- or sometimes just for the fun of it -- and dissecting them in his convenient in-home mortuary. As grotesque and graphic as this film may be, it is made all the more grim by its straightforward dramatic presentation (as if this were no more than a slightly off-kilter romantic tragedy), with atmospheric photography and a moody score by Goblin. Viewers who might consider the devouring of a human heart in poor taste are advised to avoid this film. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kieran Canter, Cinzia Monreale, (more)
- 1977
Oscar-winning character actor Strother Martin makes a return visit to Baretta, this time in the role of an embittered doctor named Shaner. Having given up on humanity, Shaner has become a professional bounty hunter. Undercover cop Tony Baretta (Robert Blake) finds himself in the uncomfortable position of preventing Doc Shaner from killing a scuzzy drug pusher who caused the death of a wealthy banker's daughter. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Blake, Edward Grover, (more)
