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Rashida Jones

(1976 - )

Rashida Jones is a Jewish American film and television actress, comic book author and screenwriter. She is best-known for her roles in the comedy television series The Office and Parks and Recreation.

Rashida Leah Jones was born on February 25, 1976, in Los Angeles, California. She is the daughter of media mogul and musician Quincy Jones and actress Peggy Lipton. Her parents divorced when she was 14 years old and she went to live with her mother in Brentwood. Though raised Jewish, Jones, like her mother, began practicing Hinduism in her early teens after the two visited an Ashram in India. Today, however, she practices Judaism and told a reporter, In this day and age, you can choose how you practice and what is your relationship with God. I feel pretty strongly about my connection, definitely through the Jewish traditions....

In 1994, Jones garnered attention with an open letter responding to scathing remarks made by Tupac Shakur about her parents' interracial marriage. She later befriended Shakur, who was engaged to her sister Kidada Jones before he was killed.

After high school, Jones left California to attend Harvard University. While at Harvard, she became involved in the performing arts, serving as musical director for the Opportunes a cappella group and belonging to the Hasty Pudding Theatricals and Harvard Radcliffe Dramatic Club. She studied religion and philosophy and graduated in 1997.

In 1997, Jones made her professional acting debut in the mini-series The Last Don. In 2000, she guest starred in Judd Apatow's Freaks and Geeks before landing the role of Louisa Fenn on Boston Public, which earned her an NAACP Image Award nomination in 2002.

In September 2006, Jones joined the cast of The Office and appeared regularly during its third season. She has played nurse Ann Perkins on Parks and Recreation since the show's primetime debut in April 2009. From 2016 to 2019, Jones starred as the lead in the series Angie Tribeca and, in 2020, Jones starred as Joya Barris in the Netflix series #blackAF.

Jones’ film work includes co-starring in 2009’s I Love You, Man, alongside Paul Rudd and Jason Segel, and 2010’s The Social Network, which was filmed at Harvard and based on Mark Zuckerberg's founding of Facebook. She was also cast in The Muppets (2011), Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012), which she co-wrote, and Tag (2018). Jones also co-wrote the story of Toy Story 4 (2019).

She worked as a producer on the film Hot Girls Wanted (2015) and the series Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On (2017). In 2018, her documentary Quincy, about her father, Quincy Jones, debuted on Netflix; it won the Grammy Award for Best Music Film in 2019.

Jones has worked to promote Peace First (formerly Peace Games), a nonprofit that teaches children to resolve conflict without violence. She has been a board member since 2004 and holds several annual benefits to raise money for the organization. Jones has participated in Stand Up to Cancer events, EDUN and ONE: The Campaign to Make Poverty History, and The Art of Elysium's volunteer program, which runs artistic workshops for hospitalized children. In 2007, she was honorary chair of the annual Housing Works benefit, which fights AIDS and homelessness in New York City. She has helped fundraise for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, the EB Medical Research Foundation, and New York’s Lower Eastside Girls Club.

In 2018, Jones had a son with her boyfriend, musician Ezra Koenig.


Sources: Internet Movie Database.
Wikipedia.

Photo: This file is licensed under the Free Art License. Author: www.rashidajones.blogspot.com