Early life
Elfman was born Jennifer Mary Butala in Los Angeles, California, to Sue Grace, a homemaker, and Richard Wayne Butala, a Hughes Aircraft executive. She attended the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts as a dance major and graduated in 1989. Her uncle is Tony Butala of The Lettermen. She studied with acting teacher Milton Katselas at the Beverly Hills Playhouse before beginning her television career.
Career
She began as a professional dancer, then made a switch to acting in the early 1990s. One of her first appearances was the lead role in the 1993 music video for the song "Black Lodge" by rock group Anthrax. Elfman did extensive commercial work before landing her first series jobs, making guest appearances in the 1995-1996 season on the ABC series Roseanne, NYPD Blue, The Monroes, and Murder One, and the CBS sitcom Almost Perfect. A role as a drug counselor in the NBC made-for-TV movie Her Last Chance came in 1996 as well, before the charismatic actress auspiciously landed a regular role as the boy-crazy Shannon, one of three young working class waitresses in the Molly Ringwald sitcom vehicle Townies. Although short-lived, Townies proved a big break for Elfman, who impressed ABC executives with her scene-stealing turn and signed her own sitcom deal before the last Townies episode aired.
This deal led to Elfman's best known role on the popular sitcom Dharma & Greg, which ran on ABC from 1997 to 2002. She won a Golden Globe Award for this role, and was nominated twice for an Emmy Award. In 1999, she co-hosted the Emmy Awards presentation with David Hyde Pierce.
In 2004, Elfman produced and starred in a feature film called Touched. In November 2005, CBS announced that Elfman vehicle, Courting Alex would be a midseason replacement, premiering in January 2006. It was announced in May that the show did not get picked up, and was thus cancelled. However, CBS immediately inked a new development deal with Elfman to create a comedy vehicle for her, as reported in The Hollywood Reporter on June 2, 2006.
Elfman also starred in the movies Krippendorf's Tribe, EDtv, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, and Keeping the Faith.
Personal life
Elfman met her husband, actor Bodhi Elfman, at a Sprite commercial audition in February of 1991. She married him in 1995, making director Richard Elfman her father-in-law and noted composer Danny Elfman her uncle-in-law. In 1991, Jenna converted to the Church of Scientology, having previously been introduced to the religion by Bodhi. Elfman is currently pregnant with a boy, due in early spring 2007.
In 2005, Elfman appeared at the Church of Scientology's controversial "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death" museum, which puts forth a theory connecting Adolf Hitler to the psychiatric profession.
In May 2006, Jenna visited her high school alma mater to urge students to set career goals and encourage them to persist in their chosen professions.
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