Lauren Holly

Lauren Michael Holly is an American and Canadian actress born on October 28, 1963. She is best known for her prominent roles across television and film, including portraying Deputy Sheriff Maxine Stewart on the television series Picket Fences, NCIS Director Jenny Shepard on NCIS, and Dr. Betty Rogers on Motive. Her major film credits include portraying Mary Swanson in Dumb and Dumber, Linda Lee Cadwell in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Darian Smalls in Beautiful Girls, and Gigi in What Women Want.

Holly was born in Bristol, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Michael Ann Holly, worked as an art historian, a professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and the Starr Director of Research and Academic Program at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Her father, Grant Holly, was a screenwriter and literature professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. She grew up alongside two younger brothers, Nick Holly and Alexander Innes Holly, and later pursued her higher education at Sarah Lawrence College in New York.

Holly began her professional acting career at the age of 20, making appearances as Carla Walicki in two episodes of Hill Street Blues and appearing in an episode of Spenser: For Hire. At age 23, she joined the cast of the ABC television soap opera All My Children as Julie Rand Chandler, appearing from 1986 to 1989. She subsequently portrayed the comic book character Betty Cooper in the 1990 television movie Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again.

Her major breakthrough occurred in 1992 when she was cast as small-town Deputy Sheriff Maxine Stewart alongside Tom Skerritt on the CBS drama series Picket Fences, appearing in nearly every episode across four seasons. During this period, she starred in feature films, portraying Linda Lee Cadwell in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story in 1993 and Mary Swanson in the comedy film Dumb and Dumber in 1994. She followed these roles with appearances as a doctor in Sabrina in 1995, Lieutenant Emily Lake in Down Periscope in 1996, Darian Smalls in Beautiful Girls in 1996, and the quarterback's wife in Any Given Sunday in 1999.

In 2000, Holly appeared in the music video for the Dixie Chicks' single Goodbye Earl and had a film role in What Women Want. She joined the cast of NCIS as Director Jenny Shepard from 2005 to 2008, reuniting with her former Chicago Hope co-stars Mark Harmon and Rocky Carroll. She went on to play lead medical examiner Dr. Betty Rogers as a regular cast member on the CTV series Motive. Her subsequent work includes starring in the film Field of Lost Shoes in 2014, Oz Perkins' horror film The Blackcoat's Daughter in 2015, and taking on a recurring role as Lynn Harper in the third season of Netflix's Designated Survivor in 2018.

Holly has been married three times: to actor Danny Quinn from 1991 to 1993, to actor Jim Carrey from 1996 to 1997, and to investment banker Francis Greco from 2001 to 2014. She and Greco adopted three sons named Henry, George, and Alexander Holly-Greco. Holly became a Canadian citizen in 2008. In 1992, she and her family established the A Fund at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in memory of her late brother Alexander.