Jennifer Beals (born December 19, 1963) is an American actress and a former teen model. She played the role of Alexandra "Alex" Owens in the 1983 film Flashdance, and as Bette Porter on the Showtime drama series The L Word. She earned an NAACP Image Award and a Golden Globe Award nomination for the former. She has appeared in more than 50 films.
 

Early life

Beals was born on the southside of Chicago, the daughter of Jeanne (née Anderson), an elementary school teacher, and Alfred Beals, who owned grocery stores. She is biracial, as her father was African American and her mother is Irish American. She has two brothers, Bobby and Gregory. Her father died when Beals was nine years old, and her mother married Edward Cohen in 1981. Beals has said her biracial heritage had some effect on her, as she "always lived sort of on the outside", with an idea "of being the other in society". She got her first job at age 13 at an ice cream store, using her height at the time (she is now nearly 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)), to convince her boss she was 16. 
 

Beals was inspired to become an actress by two events: doing a high school production of Fiddler on the Roof and seeing Balm in Gilead with Joan Allen while volunteer-ushering at the Steppenwolf Theatre.
 

She graduated from the progressive Francis W. Parker School. Beals also was chosen to attend the elite Goodman Theatre Young People's Drama Workshop. Beals attended Yale University, receiving a B.A. in American literature in 1987; she deferred a term so she could film Flashdance. While at Yale, Beals was a resident of Morse College. 
 

Career

Film

Beals had a minor role in the 1980 film My Bodyguard, then came to fame with her starring part in Flashdance. The third-highest grossing U.S. film of 1983, Flashdance is the story of 18-year-old Alex, a welder by day and exotic dancer by night, whose dream is to be accepted someday at an illustrious school of dance. Beals was cast for this key role while still a student at Yale. She was nominated for a Golden Globe and the film received an Academy Award for Best Song. Many of Beals' elaborate dance moves were actually performed by stunt double Marine Jahan. 
 

After she filmed Flashdance, she resumed her studies, making only one film during that time: playing the titular character The Bride with singer-actor Sting, a gothic horror film loosely based on the 1935 classic Bride of Frankenstein shot during her summer break, and also appearing in the Cinderella episode of Faerie Tale Theatre. She was asked by Joel Schumacher to do St. Elmo's Fire but turned it down preferring to stay at Yale. 
 

Starring opposite Nicolas Cage, the actress portrays a lusty and thirsty vampire in 1989's Vampire's Kiss.
 

In 1995, Beals and Denzel Washington co-starred in Devil in a Blue Dress, a period film based on a Walter Mosley novel featuring L.A. private detective, Easy Rawlins. Beals plays a biracial woman passing for white. That same year she appeared with Tim Roth in two segments of the four-story anthology Four Rooms, one of which was directed by her then-husband, Alexandre Rockwell.
 

Rockwell had previously directed her in the 1992 independent film In the Soup, which was a Grand Prize winner at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2003, she played one of the sequestered jury members in the film adaptation of Runaway Jury.
 

She had a leading role in 2006's The Grudge 2, sequel to the hit horror film of two years earlier. In 2010, Beals reunited with Denzel Washington in the post-Apocalyptic action drama, The Book of Eli, where she played a blind woman who is the mother of Mila Kunis' character and a servant of Gary Oldman's. 
 

Television

In 1992, she appeared in 2000 Malibu Road as attorney Perry Quinn. It was her first ongoing television series; she said she had been leery as she previously had not "found a character I wanted to live with for several years".
 

Beals made a brief cameo in the final episode of Frasier. In 2007, she appeared in the small TV drama My Name Is Sarah, in which she plays Sarah Winston, a sober woman who joins Alcoholics Anonymous to conduct research for her book but finds herself falling in love with a recovering alcoholic and - as a result - having to deal with her original deception in joining the group.
 

Beals starred in Showtime Network's The L Word, where she played Bette Porter, an Ivy League educated lesbian. At Beals' request, Bette was made biracial, enabling Pam Grier's Kit Porter character to become Bette's half-sister. She initially researched the part more in that the woman is the director of an art museum rather than a lesbian; "I was much more obsessed by the work that Bette did, because she was so obsessed by the work that she did." The series ran for six seasons and ended in March 2009.
 

She also appears alongside Tim Roth in Lie To Me, as Cal Lightman's ex-wife, Zoe Landau.
 

Beals is the female lead in Fox's TV drama The Chicago Code. Her character Teresa Colvin is Chicago's first female police superintendent. The series was canceled after its first season. 

Beals turned down an offer to appear on Dancing with the Stars, saying: "I am not a dancer. They asked me and I said 'no.' You could back up a truck to my door filled with cash and I wouldn't do it." 
 

Web series

Beals is also well known for her supports in women rights and her strong feminist character. In August 2012, she appeared in the web series Lauren on the YouTube channel, WIGS. It is a three episode series featuring the stories of women in the army being abused, predominantly by more powerful superior. The stories focused on the frequently reported cases on sexual abuse and how and why most of the cases went unreported or unsettled. Beals has also appeared in two interviews, discussing her views in relation to Lauren. 
 

Personal life

Beals was married to Alexandre Rockwell from 1986 to 1996. In 1998, she married Ken Dixon, a Canadian entrepreneur. On October 18, 2005, Beals gave birth to their daughter, Ella Dixon.

Her husband also has two children from a previous marriage. 
 

Beals has described herself as a "spiritual person". She has expressed interest in the Holy Bible, Catholicism, and is a practicing Buddhist. 
 

She has been a vocal advocate for gay rights saying "I think after playing Bette Porter on The L Word for six years I felt like an honorary member of the community." Beals was a Celebrity Grand Marshal at the 2006 San Francisco Pride Parade. 
 

She is a photographer, who has had shows of her work under her married name, Dixon. She has a book about her time on The L Word featuring her own photographs. In 1989, she spent some time in Haiti photographing the elections. 
 

She is also a triathlete. 
 

In 2010, Beals served as the Grand Marshal of the McDonald's Thanksgiving Parade in Chicago. Beals spoke about two charities that she holds dear in her heart, the Matthew Shepard Foundation and Pablove.