Jessica Collins

Blonde, bewitching American actress Jessica Collins built a career for herself in diverse films of astonishingly variable quality -- from the highs of Catch Me If You Can to the lows of Dirty Love. She also maintained a steady output from the mid-'90s into the new millennium. Born in 1971, in Schenectady, NY, Collins attended London's Royal National Theatre Studio and the Howard Fine Acting Studio in L.A. prior to landing her first significant break, as Dinah Lee Mayberry on the daytime soap opera Loving. Collins segued from this popular role into a series of movie parts. She began with the direct-to-video exploitationers Leprechaun 4: In Space (1996) and Best of the Best: Without Warning (1998), then broke straight through to A-listers with a small turn as Peggy in Steven Spielberg's seriocomic biopic Catch Me If You Can.

Shortly thereafter, Collins returned to her first love (and greatest success) -- television -- appearing in a handful of episodes of the music-themed '60s drama American Dreams as Colleen. She followed that up with a supporting turn as Meredith, the drug-addled sister of telepathic Tru Davies (Eliza Dushku), on the popular series Tru Calling (2003). This scored with the public (and made viewers sit up and notice Collins); unfortunately, she scraped the low of lows the following year by appearing in the badly received, misogynistic Jenny McCarthy comedy Dirty Love (2004), which reportedly elicited howls at Sundance and did absolutely nothing for Collins' career -- fortunately, hers constituted a small part. Not long after teaming up with the gifted Susan Seidelman on her 2004 prostitution-themed dramedy The Ranch, Collins returned to television once again, with a supporting role on the short-lived prime-time drama series Big Shots (2007).

~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide