Jillian Noel Hennessy

Jillian Noel Hennessy is a Canadian singer and actress. Her most well-known work is her roles as Claire Kincaid, a US prosecutor on Law & Order for three seasons. Crossing Jordan was six seasons. Jordan Cavanaugh, the protagonist on Crossing Jordan, lasted six seasons. She also appeared in movies such as RoboCop 3 and Most Wanted, and the independent films Chutney Popcorn and The Acting Class which is the latter of which she co-wrote and directed. Hennessy was born in Edmonton, Alberta. John Hennessy, John's father was a meat and marketing sales and marketing executive. The position required a lot of travel , which meant the family had to move frequently. The mother of her child, Maxine, a secretary was a divorcee in 1982 and left her daughter to be partially taken care of by her paternal grandmother, Eleanor and her family in Kitchener, Ontario. John Paul Hennessy Jr. has a younger brother as well as Jacqueline, a twin sister. Jacqueline is a journalist and host on a Canadian TV program. Hennessy is of Irish, French and Swedish descent, as well as Ukrainian Roma and Austrian ancestry. She was educated at 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 sibling were first actors when they appeared as twin call girls in 1988's Dead Ringers. According to Gillian Anderson (the actress who played the part) she was a finalist for Dana Scully's part on The X-Files. In 1993, Hennessy was signed by Dick Wolf as Claire Kincaid an assistant district attorney on the NBC crime drama Law & Order. The role was occupied for three seasons, before she left the show in 1996.