Rebecca Andrea Thompson (born January 6, 1960)
Film Reference. Retrieved May 19, 2013. is an American actress, known for her roles on the television series ''

Falcon Crest ''Falcon Crest'' is an American prime time television soap opera that aired for nine seasons on CBS from December 4, 1981, to May 17, 1990. The series revolves around the feuding factions of the wealthy Gioberti/Channing family in the California ...

'', ''

Babylon 5 ''Babylon 5'' is an American space opera television series created by writer and producer J. Michael Straczynski, under the Babylonian Productions label, in association with Straczynski's Synthetic Worlds Ltd. and Warner Bros. Domestic Televi ...

'', '' JAG'', '' 24'', and '' NYPD Blue''.

Early life

Andrea Thompson was born January 6, 1960 in

Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater ...

. When she was six, her family moved to Australia. She left high school at 16, and after an extended period of travel, she moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

. She began modeling and studied acting at the Strasberg Studio and the Herbert Berghof Studio under Uta Hagen.

Career

Acting career

Thompson began her career as a voiceover artist, which continues today. Her first significant film role was in the 1987 film ''

Wall Street Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for ...

''. In 1989, she was cast on the

soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...

'' as the scheming

Genele Ericson The following is a list of characters from ''Falcon Crest'', an American primetime television soap opera which aired from 1981 to 1990. Cast timeline ;Cast notes Main characters ;Angela Channing (née Gioberti), later Erickson, Stavros, Agret ...

during the show's final season, and played photojournalist Maggie Dawson in the Season 3, Episode 2 of the series '' Quantum Leap''. In 1991, she played Nurse Helen Caldwell in the comedy film '' Delirious''. In 1993 she was cast on the

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imagination, imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, Paral ...

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication Media (communication), medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of Transmission (telecommunications), television tra ...

series ''

'' as

telepath Telepathy () is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic ...

Talia Winters. Thompson left the series in the middle of its second season. Thompson moved on to join the cast of '' JAG'' midseason as Commander Alison Krennick, an aide to the Judge Advocate General of the Navy and direct supervisor of

Harmon Rabb Harmon 'Harm' Rabb, Jr. is a fictional character and lead role in the American television series '' JAG''. The character was created by Donald P. Bellisario, as a work for hire for Paramount Television, in the script for the ''JAG'' pilot episo ...

. She was among several actors who left the show when it was canceled by NBC after one season before CBS picked it up. She then went on to play Detective Jill Kirkendall on four seasons of crime drama '' NYPD Blue'', leaving in April 2000 to pursue a career in journalism.

Journalism career

Thompson started to prepare for her journalism career in 1999, by earning her GED and working for one year with Jack Hubbard, associate director of Stanford University's News Service and a veteran journalist of CBS News. During this time, she also took a writing seminar with KGO-TV's feature reporter Wayne Freedman. She began her work with CBS affiliate

KRQE KRQE (channel 13) is a television station in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States, affiliated with CBS and Fox. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, it is sister to Santa Fe–licensed ''de facto'' CW owned-and-operated station KWBQ (channel 1 ...

in Albuquerque, New Mexico as a general assignment reporter for $26,000 per year. Thompson joined ''

CNN Headline News HLN is an American basic cable network. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, the network primarily carries true crime programming. The channel was originally launched on January 1, 1982 by Turner Broadcasting as CNN2 (later renamed Headline Ne ...

'' as an evening anchor in June 2001. CNN had laid off 400 of 4,000 employees in January, and was refocusing on personalities to draw in younger viewers. Her first words on-screen as reporter were "Hi, I'm Andrea Thompson, and unless you've been living in a cave, you probably already know that." Her hiring generated controversy in journalism circles, mostly because Thompson had just one year of journalism experience.

Nude Nudity is the state of being in which a human is without clothing. The loss of body hair was one of the physical characteristics that marked the biological evolution of modern humans from their hominin ancestors. Adaptations related to h ...

pictures and videoclips of Thompson taken from her 1980s-era movies also began circulating on the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

, causing some embarrassment for CNN. Thompson left the network in March 2002. During an appearance in January 2003, she made a statement indicating she left CNN because she disagreed with the way the news was handled, "Basically... you just give the viewers enough to scare the hell out of them, and not any real valuable information. And we saw so much of that after Sept. 11 that I thought was, frankly, irresponsible." After leaving CNN, she went to work for Court TV, introducing episodes of'' NYPD Blue'' and '' Forensic Files'', as well as narrating the documentary series ''The System''. She began hosting '' Psychic Detectives'' in 2003.

Return to acting

Thompson had a recurring guest role as Doctor Nicole Duncan on the third season of the television series '' 24'', first appearing on that show in November 2003.Adalian, Josef
"Thompson garners '24' gig"
'' Variety'' August 14, 2003 In 2007, she appeared in season two of '' Bones'' in the episode "Spaceman in a Crater". In 2009, she played Field Agent Anne Hudson in "Outfoxed", a season five episode of the series ''

Criminal Minds ''Criminal Minds'' is an American police procedural crime drama television series created and produced by Jeff Davis. The series premiered on CBS on September 22, 2005, and originally concluded on February 19, 2020; it was revived in 2022. It ...

''.

Personal life

Thompson was married to David Guc from 1987 to 1990, and to ''Babylon 5'' costar Jerry Doyle from 1995 to 1997. In 1992 she gave birth to her son Alec.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson, Andrea 1960 births Living people American television actresses American television personalities American women television personalities Actresses from Dayton, Ohio 21st-century American women