Born Jennifer Elizabeth Chan on September 16, 1958 in Harbor City, California, Jennifer Tilly is an American actress and poker player. She is an Academy Award nominee, and a World Series of Poker Ladies’ Event bracelet winner. She is the older sister of actress Meg Tilly. Jennifer Tilly is best known for being a character actress who excels playing dim-witted buxom girlfriends/wives. Her most famous roles are in Bound, Liar Liar and Bullets over Broadway.
Jennifer is the daughter of Harry, a stockbroker, and Pat, a schoolteacher, Jennifer’s parents got divorced when she was six. Her father was Chinese American and her mother was of Irish, Native-American and Finnish ancestry. Pat Tilly remarried giving him and took Jennifer, her 3 siblings, and her 3 stepsiblings to British Columbia, Canada. Her mother and stepfather, John Ward, raised her on rural Texada Island, British Columbia. Having to relocate constantly with her family, Jennifer had to adjust to each new school, and was a pretty quiet student. Her mother divorced again when Tilly was 16, and moved to Victoria, where Tilly attended Belmont High School. At 17, she started out yet again at a new school, this time at St. Stephen’s College in Missouri, to study theater. In order to help pay for her tuition, she contributed articles to magazines and earned money by winning Honorable Mentions in writing competitions.
After graduating, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career (before sister Meg, contrary to popular myth), studying her craft with Peggy Feury, Stella Adler and Michael Shurtleff. She later performed in the otherwise all-black production of “Vanities” in Los Angeles before joining the Group Repertory Theater, where she appeared in Sam Shepard’s “Buried Child” and “The Bacchae.” Tilly made her television debut in 1983 with a recurring role in “Boone” (NBC, 1983-1984) and appeared a year later in her first feature, “No Small Affair” (1984), a long-forgotten romantic comedy starring Demi Moore and the equally long-forgotten Jon Cryer. In 1984, Tilly had a recurring role in “Hill Street Blues” (NBC, 1981-1987), playing a dimwitted mob widow who develops a romance with Detective Goldblume (J Spano).
Her breakthrough movie role tapped into all of those qualities failing singer Blanche “Monica” Moran in Steve Kloves’ The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) opposite brothers Jeff Bridges and Beau Bridges. A few years later, Jennifer earned an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of the aspiring but hopelessly untalented actress Olive Neal in Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway (1994). She has become well-known to filmgoers for both major studio and independent films. In Tom Shadyac’s blockbuster Liar Liar (1997) she kept pace with Jim Carrey. Her steamy performance opposite Gina Gershon helped make Lana Wachowski’s and Andy Wachowski’s Bound (1996) a breakout indie success at the Sundance Film Festival and then in theatrical release. It also expanded Jennifer’s already significant gay and lesbian following.
Tilly gained some additional popularity in recent years for providing voice-over work as killer doll Tiffany for two of the Child’s Play series. In the most recent installment, Seed of Chucky, she plays a dual role, providing the voice for Tiffany and also playing an exaggerated version of herself. She had a starring role in the series Out of Practice, which starred Henry Winkler and Stockard Channing. The series was cancelled in May 2006. About this time, Tilly started dividing her time between her film career and professional poker. By the end of 2008, she returned to her film and television career. In 2009 Tilly made her Chinese film debut in the Christina Yao-directed Empire of Silver playing Mrs. Landock.
From 1984 until 1991, Tilly was married to Sam Simon, developer and producer of The Simpsons. Jennifer Tilly has an older brother, Steve, and two younger sisters, Meg and Rebecca.
Jennifer Tilly Photo Gallery
