Sorry, I got a week's worth of sidetracked.
As usual, our first stop was the Internet movie database:
www.imdb.com/name/nm0004795/Jessica was born the 30th of October, 1982, in Tulsa Oklahoma, USA (the birthplace of, amongst others, Larry Clark and Garth Brooks
), and grew up in St. Louis, Missouri where, I believe, she attended Pattonville Sr. High School.
Her movie debut came at age ten, in the 1992 telemovie
In The Best Interest of the Children, where she acted alongside future heavyweight Sarah Jessica Parker.
A bit of un-Jessica-related trivia: Jane Lynch (Christy Cummings in Best In Show) was also in In the Best Interests of the Children (credited as Jany Lynch) Both Best In Show and ItBIotC had a character named Harlan Pepper. It would be another 7 years before Jessica was seen again on any kind of screen. This time, however, she was seen by a much wider audience, taking over the role of Tammy Metzler from a disagreeable Thora Birch in Alexander Payne's
Election (1999). In this brilliant black comedy, Jessica plays a defiant lesbian teenager, who enters as a candidate in her high school presidential election to spite her ex (now her brother's girlfriend).
A handful of nominations followed for her work in
Election. She was nominated for Best Debut Performance in the
2000 Independent Spirit Awards; earlier she had garnered a nomination for Best Performance by a Young Actress in a Comedy Film at 1999's
YoungStar Awards.
Over the next three years, she acted in two films,
The Safety of Objects (2001) (wherein, for those that care, she did a nude scene) and the virtually unknown
Junk (2002) (which she also co-produced [and may have had a nude scene too, looking at the film's rating]).
According to IMDb, Jessica won the
St. Louis International Film Festival's Emerging Actor Award 2002. This, however, is contradicted by the Festival's official website, which attributes the award to Erin Daniels (
cinemastlouis.org/archives/2002.htm). The best explanation I can offer is that the award is, in fact, given to three different people; this, at least, was the practice in 2003 (
cinemastlouis.org/main/festival/04_festival.htmlBut Jessica Campbell has, for now, disappeared. It was much easier finding information on Jarrett Grode than this wonderful actress.
IMDb points to two interesting avenues, one academic, one artistic. Her IMDb trivia page includes a tiny 'Where are they now?': apparently, she's studying anthropology in California. The second avenue (though this is the
only source on which I'm basing this - and I maaaaaybe smell a rat) is working as assistant camera on the short film
Birth of the Vampire.
Here's on online article from queer e-publication "Queery" that asks more questions than it answers:
www.queery.com/sybfusion.cgi?templ=q-item2.tpl&idx=84940&category=Q-MIA-oldHer alleged website doesn't seem to exist.
Update: One thing I
have managed to uncover is that Jessica had a small role in the 2002 comedy short
Dad's Day, a credit that IMDb fails to mention.
www.dadsdaythemovie.com/ - check out the cast page
www.imdb.com/title/tt0386398/No matter. I've rectified the situation.
But a few small roles in short films isn't enough.
Jessica Campbell: come back to us!Sorry for all the nude scene mentions; this is seriously all I could find on Jessica Campbell. The cupboard is bare, people. Help me out.www.aboutfilm.com/features/safetyofobjects/safetyofobjects6.jpg
), and grew up in St. Louis, Missouri where, I believe, she attended Pattonville Sr. High School.
