>Jennifer Beals
FLASH FORWARD
FOURTEEN YEARS AGO, JENNIFER BEALS was the teenager every girl wanted to be. In artfully torn T-shirts and leggings, the 18-year-old starlet danced across suburban movie screens in Flashdance. Today, at 33 and casually chic in a silk blouse and classic slacks, Beals laughs off the trend she launched, admitting that she hasn't watched the disco-era hit since its 1983 premiere—apart from the clip in this year's comedy The Full Monty.
Beals is back on the screen in director Ross Marks's Twilight of the Golds, in which she plays a woman who discovers from genetic tests that her unborn son will be gay. It's the type of cerebral role that suits the actress, who graduated from Yale in 1987. Beals shrugs off suggestions that she was a Flash in the pan. "I'm not able to play the Hollywood chess game," she says. Rather than go for the lead role or the commercial hit, Beals says she has always followed the part or the director she prefers. At 22, she followed director Alexandre Rockwell to the altar; their 1996 divorce was amicable—except over custody of their ER tapes. Director Quentin Tarantino came to their rescue with the reminder, "Guys, I can get you more tapes!" Beals has a new man in her life—his identity is secret—and an upcoming role in director Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco. When not working, she loves to hike near her Malibu home or curl up with a novel. "My life is pretty sedate now," she says.
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