Who

Leigh is best known for her parts in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Single White Female. She's married to Noah Baumbach.

Backstory

The daughter of ill-fated Combat! actor Vic Morrow and Pollock screenwriter Barbara Turner, Hollywood-born Jennifer Lee Morrow has been in the biz since she was nine, and dropped out of school at 16 to pursue acting full-time. Her early roles, not surprisingly, were as naïve, damaged young things—she played a pregnant 15-year-old in the TV movie I Think I'm Having a Baby; for another part, she dropped down to 90 pounds to appear as an anorexic teen. She managed to break out of the TV movie deathtrap with another knocked-up teen role in 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High. In the late '80s and early '90s, Leigh began to get kudos as a serious actress thanks to roles in Last Exit To Brooklyn, the druggie flick Rush, and as deranged nightmare-roommate Hedra Carlson in Single White Female; JJL's credibility was further cemented with Robert Altman's Short Cuts, the Coen brothers' The Hudsucker Proxy, and Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. In 1996, she won plaudits for Georgia, a movie written by her mother. Leigh's junkie character was based on the real-life struggles of her own sister, Carrie.

Following several unremarkable indies in the late '90s, she decided to helm one of her own in 2001, writing, directing, and starring in The Anniversary Party with Alan Cumming; the film stars real-life friends/fellow indie partisans Parker Posey, Phoebe Cates, Kevin Kline, and John C. Reilly. A sometime stage actress, around the same time she also gained attention for taking over the lead role in Proof from Mary-Louise Parker.

Of note

Although she's never been a glamorous leading lady, Leigh has never had any trouble finding work. Post-Anniversary, she's been in Road to Perdition, In the Cut, and The Jacket with Adrien Brody. Most recently, she appeared alongside Nicole Kidman, John Turturro, and Jack Black in 2007's ill-received Margot at the Wedding, written and directed by her husband Noah Baumbach. She'll be busy this year promoting roles in Lymelife (alongside Alec Baldwin and Cynthia Nixon), America, and Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York.

No joke

There was already a "Jennifer Leigh" registered at the Screen Actor's Guild when she showed up to pick up her union card. She added "Jason" in honor of family friend Jason Robards.

Personal

In the late '80s, Leigh lived with fellow former teen actor Eric Stoltz. (He went on to date Bridget Fonda, who played the lookalike of Leigh's character in Single White Female.) She and longtime partner Noah Baumbach tied the knot in 2005, and the couple now lives in a co-op on lower Fifth Avenue. In February 2007, they paid $1.26 million to take over their next-door neighbor's apartment and combine it with their own.

True story

Her father, actor Vic Morrow, was decapitated in a helicopter accident on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie in 1982.

---