Jean Paige Turco (born May 17, 1965) is an American actress, who portrayed April O'Neil in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993). Other credits include ongoing appearances in the soap operas Guiding Light (1987–1989) and All My Children (1989–1992), as well as starring main cast roles in Winnetka Road (1994), American Gothic (1995–1998), The Agency (2001–2003), Big Shots (2007–2008) and the first six seasons (2014–2019) as Dr. Abigail Griffin in the post-apocalyptic drama series The 100. Her last film role was in a chapter of the 2020 anthology horror movie Books of Blood, while her last television role was a special return appearance in "The Last War", the 2020 series finale of The 100.
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Early life
Turco was born May 17, 1965, to Joyce Jean (Jodoin) and David Vincent Turco in Boston, Massachusetts. At one year old her mother moved them to Springfield, Massachusetts, where she was raised, after the death of her father. She is of Italian, French-Canadian and English ancestry. She took ballet lessons as a little girl and planned to become a classical ballerina. She attended the Walnut Hill School in Natick, Massachusetts, graduating in 1983 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, in 1987 and majored in drama at the University of Connecticut.
