- Born
- Birth nameJennifer Lee Morrow
- Nickname
- JJL
- Height5′ 3″ (1.60 m)
- Jennifer Jason Leigh was born Jennifer Lee Morrow in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of writer Barbara Turner and actor Vic Morrow. Her father was of Russian Jewish descent and her mother was of Austrian Jewish ancestry. She is the sister of Carrie Ann Morrow and half-sister of actress Mina Badie.
Jennifer's parents divorced when she was two. Jennifer worked in her first film at the age of nine, in a nonspeaking role for the film Death of a Stranger (1973). At 14 she attended summer acting workshops given by Lee Strasberg and later landed a role in the Disney TV movie The Young Runaways (1978). She received her Screen Actors Guild membership for an episode of the TV series Baretta (1975) when she was 16. Jennifer performed in several TV movies and dropped out of Pacific Palisades High School six weeks short of graduation for her major role in the film Eyes of a Stranger (1981). Her first major success came as the female lead in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982).
Jennifer was married to writer/director Noah Baumbach from 2005 to 2013, and they have one son.
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous
- SpouseNoah Baumbach(September 2, 2005 - September 17, 2013) (divorced, 1 child)
- ChildrenRohmer Emmanuel Baumbach
- Parents
- RelativesCarrie Ann Morrow(Sibling)Mina Badie(Half Sibling)
- Often played difficult roles for an actress, characters "suffering" much in the story.
- Well-known in Hollywood for the exhausting research she does for each of her portrayals and for her affinity of playing lurid roles.
- Jennifer chose her second middle name "Jason" from that of her and her father's friend, the actor Jason Robards.
- The daughter of actor Vic Morrow and actress-screenwriter Barbara Turner, Morrow (nee Morozoff) died during the filming of the movie Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) when he was killed in a helicopter accident. Leigh and her father were estranged at the time of his death and he left her $100 in his will. Leigh is of entirely Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Her paternal grandparents, Harry Morozoff and Jean Kress, were emigrants from Russia. Her maternal grandfather, Alexander Turner, was an emigrant from Austria, and her maternal grandmother, Pearl Pauline Zises, was born in New York, to Austrian-born parents.
- Lived side by side with Jack Black and Nicole Kidman during filming Margot at the Wedding (2007), because they wanted to perfect their roles as a dysfunctional family.
- After reading the script for the movie Backdraft (1991), Jennifer reportedly told its director, Ron Howard, that she wished that she could be the fire because it has the best part.
- I could never play the ingenue, the girl next door or the very successful young doctor. That would be a bore.
- [on her best friend, Phoebe Cates] Your best friend is the only one who would tell you the person you are in love with is a sexually ambivalent man-child.
- I just don't plan things. I live a month at a time.
- I'm a typical middle child. I'm the mediator. The one that makes everything OK, puts their own needs aside to make sure everybody's happy. It's hard to change your nature, even with years and years of therapy.
- I like a movie that the audience actively has to participate in, and not just casually observe. Whatever my part in it, just as an audience member, I find that exciting.
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