Jenette Goldstein: Movies, Awards & Box Office

Jenette Elise Goldstein is an American actress and businesswoman best known for her gritty, memorable performances in several landmark science‑fiction and action films. Born on February 4, 1960 in Los Angeles, California, she grew up in Beverly Hills in a family with Brazilian and Moroccan roots and was raised in a Jewish household. Before turning to acting, Goldstein trained as a gymnast, a discipline that gave her a physicality that later helped shape her on‑screen presence, especially in physically demanding roles. Her breakthrough came when director James Cameron cast her as Private Vasquez in the 1986 sequel Aliens, a performance that earned her a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress and established her as a capable character actor capable of delivering both toughness and vulnerability. She quickly followed this success with a striking turn as Diamondback, a mysterious vampire, in Kathryn Bigelow’s neo‑western horror Near Dark (1987), garnering another Saturn nomination and cementing her reputation for choosing bold, genre‑defying projects.

After the Aliens triumph, Goldstein continued to collaborate with Cameron, appearing as Janelle Voight, the foster mother of the future resistance leader John Connor, in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and later delivering a brief but poignant cameo as an Irish immigrant mother in Titanic (1997). Throughout the 1990s she built a diverse résumé with supporting roles in Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), Fair Game (1995), and cameo appearances in Star Trekk Generations (1994) and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998). On television she became a familiar guest star on series such as ER, Six Feet Under, 24, and Star Trek: Short Treks. In addition to acting, Goldstein leverages her industry insights as the founder of Jenette Bras, a specialty retailer focusing on large‑cup bras, famously marketing the brand with the slogan “The alphabet starts at ‘D’.”