Tamara Jenkins
| Tamara Jenkins | |
|---|---|
Jenkins in 2013
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| Born |
May 2, 1962 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States |
| Occupation | Screenwriter, film director, actress |
| Years active | 1991–Present |
| Spouse(s) | Jim Taylor |
Tamara Jenkins (born May 2, 1962) is an American screenwriter, film director, and occasional actress. She is best known for her two feature films, Slums of Beverly Hills (1998) and The Savages (2007).
Jenkins was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Lillian and Manuel Jenkins. Her father was Jewish and her mother was Italian American. After her parents divorced, her father, a car salesman and former nightclub owner, took custody of her and her three brothers, moving the family to California to work as a car salesman. She lived in Beverly Hills with her father and brothers and attended Beverly Hills High for a year and a half, during which legal custody of Jenkins was awarded to her oldest brother.
A stage actor and a performance artist in New York's East Village during the 1980s, she enrolled in the Graduate Filmmaking program at New York University's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts in the 1990s. Winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship for filmmaking, Jenkins also attended the Sundance Institute Screenwriting and Filmmakers Lab.
Jenkins began her career with a short film, 1991's Fugitive Love, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival. Afterwards she completed a congressional mandate associated with PBS to bring diverse programming to public television, that was funded by the Independent Television Service. Another black and white short film, 1993's Family Remains, followed, which earned her early acclaim; it received a Special Jury Prize for Excellence in Short Filmmaking at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival.
Her debut feature film, 1998's semi autobiographical Slums of Beverly Hills which she both wrote and directed, played at both Sundance and the Cannes film festival. Based on her own experience growing up in Beverly Hills in the 1970s, Slums is a dark comedy about growing up broke in glitzy Los Angeles. Using photographs Jenkins had kept from her time at Beverly Hills High School, Art Director Scott Plauch and Production Designer Dena Roth were able create an accurate period depiction of Beverly Hills, while also staying true to the autobiographical element key the film's success. Starring Alan Arkin, Natasha Lyonne and Marisa Tomei, the film was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards (Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay) and has since become a cult hit. Jenkins took a nearly decade-long hiatus to complete her next feature film. In the nine-year gap between her two films, she worked on an eventually abandoned screenplay about photographer Diane Arbus. Before returning to her next feature film, Jenkins branched out to explore theater, essay publications, and non-profit film and TV work. In 2003, Tamara directed The New Group's theater production of A Likely Story, written and performed by David Cale.
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