Jean Paige Turco (born May 17, 1965) is an American actress, best known for her role as April O\'Neil in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III. Other notable roles include Melanie Cortlandt on the ABC soap opera All My Children, Terri Lowell in the CBS series The Agency, and appearances in American Gothic, NYPD Blue, Party of Five and Person of Interest. Since March 2014, she currently stars as Abigail Griffin in the post-apocalyptic drama series, The 100.\n', '

Turco was born to Joyce Jean (Jodoin) and David Vincent Turco, in Springfield, Massachusetts, where she was raised. She is of Italian descent. She took ballet lessons as a little girl and planned to become a classical ballerina. She attended the Walnut Hill School in Natick, Massachusetts, and performed as a soloist at the New England Dance Conservatory, the Amherst Ballet Theatre Company, and the Western Massachusetts Ballet Company. An ankle injury ended the possibility of professional ballet. She remarked later, "I couldn\'t even go to the ballet anymore. It was too painful." Turco graduated from Bay Path College in Longmeadow, Massachusetts (1987) and majored in drama at the University of Connecticut.\n', '

Turco made her television acting debut in 1987, on the CBS soap opera Guiding Light as Dinah Marler, and appeared on the soap opera All My Children as Melanie Cortlandt. She replaced Judith Hoag in the role of April O\'Neil in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991) and later in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993). She then starred in a number of small films and returned to TV with a role in the short-lived 1994 NBC primetime soap, Winnetka Road, opposite Catherine Hicks. The following season, Turco starred in another short-lived series, CBS\'s American Gothic. She later had recurring roles in NYPD Blue as Officer Abby Sullivan and on Party of Five as Annie Mott, a single mother who is also a recovering alcoholic.\n', '

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