Jenny Wright

Another celebrity crush! An actress I liked a lot "back in the day" was Jenny Wright, who looked like all kinds of trouble, back in her prime. She had some kind of breakdown or something and her career took a nosedive, and she all but disappeared for some time. Her last listed acting credit was in 1998. The writeup below is from one of the infosites about her, which unaccountably omit "I, Madman" from her list of credits...

Lissome blonde actor who began in supporting roles as ingenues and later played several earnest leading lady parts in mostly routine films. Wright studied acting at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute and with teachers including Stella Adler. A New York native, she lived for a time with her family upstate but returned to Manhattan as a teen and found work in off-Broadway theater. Wright made her film debut in "The World According to Garp" (1982) and for a time seemed posed to enter the "brat pack" gang of young actors reaching for stardom in the mid-1980s. She played the modest-sized role of Rob Lowe's wife in one of that group's signature films, "St. Elmo's Fire" (1985), but Wright's subsequent credits have received variable exposure.

One of Wright's best parts was as a female vampire with a fondness for young cowboys in Kathryn Bigelow's intelligent and handsomely wrought horror entry, "Near Dark" (1987). Some of her other films have received precious little exposure, such as the uneven but sometimes engaging oddity, "Twister" (1989), and the "thirtysomething" ensemble comedy-drama, "Queen's Logic" (1991). As one of the few women in the cast of the so-so sequel, "Young Guns II" (1990), Wright at least had a good exit scene. "The Lawnmower Man" (1992), meanwhile, found the lovely actor in a big hit, but soft-pedaled her role as the lover of a man used as a guinea pig in virtual reality experiments in favor of flashy special effects.

Some people wonder whether it was drugs or going crazy or what that led to her disappearing for awhile, and her general career flameout. Nobody's quite sure. She is still alive, apparently. There was a fansite to her for years, but looks like it's gone. It wasn't very well-designed, but did have some current information on it.

She was really solid as Mae in "Near Dark." Below is a mini-bio from IMDB:

In the early 1980s, a young actress made her first appearances in television and films with an unforgettably quirky presence - vulnerable and seductive all at once. Her delicate features - unusual green eyes and aching-to-be-kissed lips - combined with her petite and shapely figure to make a true gamine beauty.

Unfortunately, she never had much of a chance; she was sidelined into 'tramp' roles from the word go. Her small-screen debut on the critically acclaimed sitcom, "Love, Sidney," was as a teenage runaway/prostitute. Her film debut in "Pink Floyd: The Wall" cast her as a groupie. For the remainder of 1982, the bad girl image more or less stuck: she gave Robin Williams' Garp his first sexual experience as flighty Cushie in "The World According to Garp" and she played the flirty younger sister of Tommy Lee Jones' girlfriend in the made-for-TV film "The Executioner's Song."

In 1984, she was cast as Eileen in "The Wild Life," a semisequel to the popular "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." She was her charming self, in a role that didn't have much to offer, but gave some bright spots to an otherwise forgettable film. The two films she made next, 1985's "St. Elmo's Fire" and 1986's "Out of Bounds," cast her with members of the Brat Pack. Although she was never an official Brat Packer, she was on its fringes.

In 1987, Jenny was offered her first star turn in Kathryn Bigelow's "Near Dark." Released at the same time as the mainstream-smash "Lost Boys," it finished decidedly second at the box office - a shame, since Jenny's performance as vampire ingenue Mae was nothing short of brilliant. This film also marked her decided career directional change away from mainstream film and into endues.

"I, Madman" was made in 1989, and Jenny was perfect in her dual role as real-time victim Virginia and fifties-era victim Anna Templer. Unfortunately, it marked the last time Jenny had a major role in a film, and in the early 1990s she reprised her early-career persona of the tramp in films like "Queens Logic," "Young Guns II" (as a memorable madam), and 1992's "The Lawnmower Man" (as Marnie Burke, a widow on the prowl). Making only one more film appearance in 1998, she has virtually disappeared. Attempts to locate her to appear with her colleagues in a documentary about "Near Dark" were unsuccessful. Ironic that this talented actress, so good in two films with sinister plots ("Near Dark" and "I, Madman") should be the subject of a mystery herself.

Where have you gone, Jenny?