Jessica Harper is 5 feet, 4 inches tall, with brown hair and eyes. She was born on October 10, 1949, in Chicago, Illinois, and has a younger sister, Lindsay. Not a lot of information about her childhood or education has been made public. She attended Sarah Lawrence College, where she studied voice and modern dance before making her showbiz debut on Broadway in Hair

She first came onto the movie scene in 1974's cult favorite Phantom of the Paradise, Brian DePalma's story of the bizarre underbelly of rock music sensations. As Phoenix, she portrayed the struggle of a young woman to keep her own identity while working her way towards the top, bringing a beautiful, haunting sadness to a character thrust into a world where she sells her voice -- her "soul" -- to the person who can bring her the attention she craves.


Jessica sings "Special to Me" in Phantom of the Paradise

In 1975, she appeared in the X-rated Inserts with Richard Dreyfuss, on which she was the music consultant, before landing the role of Suzy Bannion in Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977). Jessica caught Argento's eye in Phantom and he gave her the lead in what would become her second cult classic, considered by some to be one of the scariest films of all time, as well as one of the most graphically gruesome and epic in emotion. Suzy, the childlike dancer who travels halfway around the world to attend school, is one of Jessica's most complex characters, incredibly naive while at the same time strong enough to save herself from a coven of centuries-old witches. She reprised the role of Suzy in Dario Argento's World of Horror in 1985.

Jessica appeared in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories(1980) as Daisy, another musician, though of a different sort, and in Steve Martin's Pennies from Heaven (1981) before signing on to play Janet Majors in yet another film destined to become a cult fave -- Richard O'Brien's sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Shock Treatment. Jessica brought a 3-dimensional sense to the character of Janet that Susan Sarandon, given the material she was, couldn't in 1975's Rocky Horror. Janet became a woman not-quite-managing to balance the stress of career, a dull husband, meddling parents, and life in a town that revolved completely around a television station. For the second time, Jessica sang in a movie (in Phantom, she did an incredible song-and-dance number called "Special to Me" and the somber "Old Souls"). Many die-hard Rocky Horror fans were turned off by this new Janet, so different from the first, and Jessica took much of the impact of the film's failure to find commercial success, though she was very possibly the only new actor in the movie (many of the supporting cast were playing mostly-reprised roles) able to hold her own.


Jessica sings "In My Own Way" from Shock Treatment

After Shock Treatment, Jessica mostly dropped out of sight, turning up occasionally in little-seen, mediocre movies such as the Dylan McDermott flop The Blue Iguana in 1988. She did some TV appearances, but for the most part, her star in Hollywood was fading.

In the late '80s, Jessica married Tom Rothman and they have two children, Elizabeth and Nora. Soon after, she began recording children's music, written herself -- A Wonderful Life in 1994, Not a Traditional Christmas in 1995, Nora's Room in 1996, Forty Winks in 1998, and Rhythm in My Shoes in 2000. All were highly acclaimed and won multiple awards for their musician's unusual, beautiful voice and lyrics that appealed to both children and adults. She wrote the children's book I'm Not Going to Chase the Cat Today, which her sister, Lindsay Harper DuPont, illustrated, as well as I Forgot My Shoes -- like her music, both were hailed by critics.

In 2000, Jessica was supposed to appear in Me, Myself, and Irene with Jim Carrey, but apparently her scenes were cut. She has a new children's book coming out in 2001 and has an official website for her music and books at http://www.harpcomusic.com. Currently, she lives in California with her husband, kids, and Lucy, a dog.