Jillian Noel Hennessy

Jillian Noel Hennessy is a Canadian actress and singer. She is most known for her roles in the American television show Law & Order, on where she played prosecutor Claire Kincaid for three seasons as well as Crossing Jordan, on which she played the lead character, Jordan Cavanaugh, for six seasons. She has also been an actress in films like RoboCop 3: Most Wanted and the indie film Chutney Popcorn (which she also co-directed) and The Acting Class (which was written by her). Hennessy was born in Edmonton, Alberta. John Hennessy was her father. He was a meat marketer and a sales/marketing executive. This position required lots of travel, which resulted in frequent family relocations. Maxine, Maxine's mother passed away in the year 1982. She left her daughter under the care of Eleanor, her paternal grandmother. She has a younger brother, John Paul "J.P." Hennessy, Jr., and an identical twin sister, Jacqueline, who is a journalist for magazines and a television host in Canada. Hennessy is a mixture of Irish, French French, Swedish and Italian heritage on her father's side, and most Ukrainian Roma on the mother's. She attended Stanley Park Senior Public School and then graduated from Grand River Collegiate Institute in Kitchener, Ontario and busked in the Toronto subway. Hennessy as well as her sister, and her first performance was as twin call girls in 1988's Dead Ringers. Gillian Anderson, Gillian Anderson's actress, claims she was shortlisted for Dana Scully, The X-Files role. She also appeared on 1988's Dead Ringers as twin call girls. Dick Wolf signed Hennessy in 1993 for the role of Claire Kincaid, an assistant district attorney, in the NBC crime drama Law & Order. She played the role for three seasons, leaving the show in 1996.