Born: 24 July 1971, United States
Died: NA
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Patricia Lea Jenkins
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women founder Allison Tyra’s book The View from the Hill: Women Who Made Their Mark After 40.
The film that launched Patty Jenkins’ career should have been 2003’s Monster, starring Charlize Theron as the real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos. The film won or was nominated for dozens of prestigious awards, including several for Jenkins as writer and director, and an Oscar win for Theron. Just as opportunities were becoming available, Jenkins became pregnant and instead took smaller television jobs that wouldn’t require the travel, hours, and intense focus of a major film project. But years later she made it clear that she wasn’t going to become a footnote in film history when she directed the $150 million DC film Wonder Woman, released in 2017, the month before she turned 46. The film would gross more than $800 million, making it the highest-grossing superhero origin film of all time. Jenkins became the first woman to direct a major superhero film and went on to write and direct the 2020 sequel, Wonder Woman 1984.