Elizabeth Pena RIP: Co-Starred in 'Jacob's Ladder'

Tim Robbins and Elizabeth Peña in a scene from the hallucinatory "Jacob’s Ladder" in 1990.

Actress Elizabeth Peña passed away Tuesday in Los Angeles. She'd been suffering from cirrhosis of the liver due to alcohol. Pena was 55.

Born in New Jersey and raised in New York by her Cuban parents, she went on to have an acting career that included roles in Jacob's Ladder, Lone Star and TV's Modern Family

In Adrian Lyne's Jacob Ladder (1990), Peña played opposite Tim Robbins. The movie's about drug experiments that were conducted on unknowing American soldiers while they fought in Vietnam. As Jacob (Robbins) suffers flashbacks, he tries to piece together the mystery of his angst. In the film's famous party scene, while Pena's Jezzie dances to James Brown's "My Thang," Jacob envisions her being taken by the devil. It's one of his many hallucinations. 

Peña also appeared in Down and Out in Beverly Hills, La Bamba, Rush HourDrug Wars: The Camarena Story and numerous TV shows, including this year's Matador. She's survived by her husband and two children.

Steve Bloom

Steve Bloom

Publisher of CelebStoner.com, former editor of High Times and Freedom Leaf and co-author of Pot Culture and Reefer Movie Madness.