The teen paperbacks weren’t all that memorable, but the girl that appeared on them was: Jennifer Connelly would grow up to become an Oscar-winning actress.

Connelly was confronted with her book cover girl past on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on Tuesday night. She was there to promote her new movie “American Pastoral” — based on the novel by Philip Roth — but Kimmel had questions for the actress about her other literary connections.

Kimmel produced a stack of paperbacks from the 1980s featuring a teenage Connelly on the covers, prompting an embarrassed smile from the actress.

Reacting to the cover of a romance novel called “Once in California,” a somewhat sheepish Connelly recalled her career as a model for young adult books.


“I remember you’d go and do these things and they’d tell you a little bit about the story,” Connelly said, "[so you could] try and get in the spirit of what’s happening in the novel.”

Other books displayed by Kimmel featured titles such as “The Two of Us,” “Rock ‘n’ Roll Romance” (tagline: “Loving Rock ‘n’ Roll doesn’t mean you can’t fall in love”) and the bizarrely titled “Annabelle Starr, E.S.P.”

Kimmel had fun with the last one, noting the text underneath the name of the author, Lila Perl: “Author of ‘Hey, Do You Remember Fat Glenda?’”

“I wanted to show you something,” Kimmel said. “I was also a teen model at one time, and I played Fat Glenda.” He then produced a paperback with that title, with his face Photoshopped onto a woman’s body.


In “American Pastoral,” Connelly stars with Ewan McGregor and Dakota Fanning. The film, directed by McGregor, is based on Philip Roth’s critically acclaimed 1997 novel.

“This is one of the great books, right?” Kimmel said. “It won a Pulitzer Prize, and now it’s a movie, so we don’t have to read it anymore.”

“You should see the movie and you should still read the book,” Connelly replied. “It’s extraordinary. It’s so beautiful.”