Jennifer Beals was a student at Yale University when she landed the iconic role of welder-turned-sensual-dancer Alex in 1983’s romantic drama dance film “Flashdance.” The decision to defer a term to film the movie resulted in an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture, a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress nomination, and the third-highest-grossing U.S. film of that year. Nearly 40 years later, she continues to enjoy a successful acting career and a life of activism.
Beals was born on the South Side of Chicago and took an interest in acting while she was in high school, where she worked on a production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” After graduation, she participated in the Goodman Theatre Young People's Drama Workshop. Once filming for “Flashdance” was completed, she returned to Yale and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in American Literature.
Beals returned to acting after Yale and appeared in a number of notable films, including the cult hit “Vampire’s Kiss,” the period film “Devil in a Blue Dress,” the comedy-drama “The Last Days of Disco,” and the post-apocalyptic action drama “The Book of Eli.”
In 2004, Beals stepped into one of her most significant roles, that of bi-racial lesbian Art Museum Director Bette on Showtime’s “The L Word.” She used her own experiences as a mixed-race woman to relate to her character.
"The idea of being the other in society is not foreign to me,” she said to Curve magazine. The show ran for six seasons and, when it returned as “The L Word: Generation Q” in 2019, Beals reprised her role.
Beals credits the original show with her interest in activism and gay rights.
“That started to shift my perception, and I understood how important it was to become involved, to move the needle a little bit,” she said to The Guardian in February 2022. She has since been Celebrity Grand Marshal at the San Francisco Pride Parade and received the Human Rights Campaign's Ally For Equality Award.
Beals currently stars on Disney Plus as Garsa Fwip in “The Book of Boba Fett,” a spin-off of “The Mandalorian,” and will next be seen in “Organized Crime,” the latest spin-off of “Law & Order.”