At 62, Jennifer Beals still carries the presence that made Flashdance a 1983 staple. Forty-three years ago, she danced through sparks and rain as Alex Owens and locked herself into pop culture history. Scroll her recent photos and you’ll see it. Time moved. She didn’t rush to keep up. Some stars chase youth. She just kept working.
While traveling through Wales recently, Beals snapped a casual photo of herself standing in an open field, mountains rolling behind her, hair doing whatever the wind felt like that day. She captioned it, “Hello Wales, lover of magical consonants! It’s been decades since I’ve been to your green fields-they are as lovely as ever. Thank you for a wonderful journey!” Then signed off with “Cael diwrnod gwych.”
When Flashdance hit theaters in 1983, Beals was 19 and suddenly everywhere. Then she vanished. She went back to Yale to finish her degree. Years later, she returned, taking smaller film roles and eventually landing Bette Porter on Showtime’s The L Word. If Flashdance made her famous, Bette showed her acting chops. The show ran from 2004 to 2009 and came back again with The L Word: Generation Q, where Beals stepped right back into that role. Again, like no time had passed.
Earlier this year, she released The L Word: A Photographic Journal, a book built from photos she quietly took on set for six seasons. What started as a private gift became public after fans wouldn’t stop asking. “It’s a way to hold onto a moment in time that was incredibly special,” she said. “It’s about remembering the joy and connection we all felt.”
She’s also still acting. Beals recently wrapped Joy Will Prevail, a period drama set in the early 1970s, starring Griffin Dunne and directed by Max Korman. She plays the wife of architect Louis Kahn.
At 62, Jennifer Beals isn’t slowing down. Yale in Hollywood named her its 2025 Career Achievement Award honoree, with Roshan Sethi snagging the Queer Voice Award. From The L Word to launching Run-A-Muck, Beals proves impact beats hype every time. She is still turning heads decades after Flashdance, without chasing nostalgia or pretending time hasn’t passed.
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