Steve Jobs may be renowned as a tech legend and a god of innovation and branding, but those with personal relationships to the Apple guru perhaps didn't always see him in such an untarnished light. In the Danny Boyle-directed, Aaron Sorkin-penned film Steve Jobs , the man's faults share screentime with his world-changing accomplishments. Among those depicted flaws are the misguided and downright unkind decisions that he made in regards to his high school sweetheart Chrisann Brennan and her daughter Lisa. Even after a paternity test named him as Lisa's father with over 94% accuracy, Jobs continued to contest the results for years. Before his death, he accepted financial responsibility and reportedly apologized to both Brennan women. Lisa obtained his blessing to legally become Lisa Brennan-Jobs. But where is Jobs' daughter Lisa now, all these years later, and with her on-screen self hitting theaters across the globe?
Her father's denial of her paternity ensured that Brennan-Jobs would endure more than her fair share of challenges growing up. As the movie describes, she was born in a commune and lived with her mother off of welfare for a time. Though Jobs refused to support them, he did name one of his early personal computer products The Apple Lisa — although he claimed that the name stood for "Local Integrated Software Architecture." Later in his life, Brennan-Jobs and her father did develop a relationship, and she even lived with him for a portion of her teen years.
Through what I'd wager is a combination of genetic luck and hard-won resilience, Lisa Brennan-Jobs went on to define herself as a prolific and respected writer. She graduated from Harvard's School Of Journalism in 2000, and her writer profile page is still hosted on the homepage of The Harvard Crimson . While at school, Brennan-Jobs wrote about the usual college newspaper topics: student forums, alcohol consumption, the ins-and-outs of the meal plan, etc.
After leaving school, Brennan-Jobs continued to write. Her online portfolio features a selection of pieces from The Los Angeles Times; O: The Oprah Magazine; The Southwest Review, Vogue, and more, but hasn't been updated since September 2009. Some essays were written exclusively for her blog, like the one where she extols the virtues of a good brew. "Coffee is my ritual, my interval," she writes. "The luminous place between now and what’s next, more arc than landing." (Same.) Brennan-Jobs focuses on travel, food, and her childhood; and though she doesn't avoid the subject of her famous father completely, his presence in her work is slight. The effect of his early absence is felt, however, especially in her 2008 "Tuscan Holiday" piece for Vogue. In describing the clan of an Italian man named Marco who she dated for a time, Brennan-Jobs writes that she "had always wanted a large, close-knit family" like his. But there doesn't appear to be any malice in the thought.
Before Michael Fassbender was even cast in the part of Jobs, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin told The Independent that it would be Jobs's daughter who would play the most pivotal role in his film. Though Lisa Brennan-Jobs lives a very private life, appears to have no public social media accounts, and rarely gives interviews, she did participate in the development of Steve Jobs, according to Sorkin. He said:
She didn’t participate in Walter Isaacson’s book [the biography the film is based on], because her father was alive at the time, and she didn’t want to alienate either of her parents, so I was very grateful that she was willing to spend time with me... She is the heroine of the movie.
In the film, Lisa Brennan-Jobs is played at different ages by three actresses: Perla Haney-Jardine, Ripley Sobo, and Makenzie Moss. While the titular character's real-life daughter likes to stay out of the spotlight, she'll certainly be represented in the movie.
Image: Universal Pictures
