My Take
Jessica Harper is one of those actresses who burned herself into cinema history with a single performance and somehow never got the mainstream credit she deserved. Her turn as Suzy Bannion in Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977) is the stuff of legend — wide-eyed, fragile, and utterly mesmerizing against that insane color palette and Goblin score. But she was already showing real range before that, starring in Brian De Palma's deliriously weird Phantom of the Paradise in 1974, where she got to actually sing and proved she had genuine chops. Woody Allen cast her in Love and Death, and she held her own in My Favorite Year alongside Peter O'Toole. She's a Sarah Lawrence grad who clearly picked projects with taste rather than just chasing fame, and that curatorial instinct is exactly why her filmography still holds up decades later.
Overview
Jessica Randolph Harper (born October 3, 1949) is an American actress and singer. Harper began her feature film career with a starring role in Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise (1974), and subsequently featured in films including Love and Death (1975), Inserts (1975) and My Favorite Year (1982).
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Jessica Harper
- Name (Japanese)
- ジェシカ・ハーパー
- Reading
- じぇしか・はーぱー
- Born
- October 10, 1949 (age 76)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Libra / Ox
- Origin
- Chicago, Illinois, United States
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- actor / singer / television actor / film actor / writer
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- Sarah Lawrence College
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.