Jeri Lynn Ryan was born on February 22 in 1968. Born of Jerry and Sharon Zimmerman, she was the daughter of Americans living in Munich, Germany at the time.

    Early in Jeri's childhood, the Zimmerman family (which also includes Jeri's brother, Mark, who is a writer/tennis instructor) eventually decided to move back to the United States. A self-described "Army brat," growing up with a father who was a Master Sergeant, she's lived in Kansas, Maryland, Hawaii, Georgia and Texas. Eventually, her family moved to Paducah, Kentucky (reportedly when she was 11) where they settled down. Her father retired, and she finished school at Lone Oak High School in 1986. She then moved to Chicago where she attended Northwestern University, and soon met her husband, Jack Ryan.

    While attending Northwestern, she won a number of beauty contests which she says she entered as a way to pay for college, and she was also in many plays. After college, this National Merit Scholar went on to pursue a career as an actress, which she says she always wanted to do. She's mentioned that her husband Jack bought her a plane ticket and sent her off to LA... her life was about to change.

    Since then, she's been on several TV shows and in more than a few different movies. She's been on popular shows like Matlock, Melrose Place, Dark Skies, and many TV movies like Overexposed, Co-Ed Call Girl, Nightmare in Columbia County and Ambush in Waco - In the Line of Duty. Her independent film roles have been in Men Cry Bullets and The Last Man (both available to buy in many places, including internet movie websites), and a movie called Waiting which is a 1991 Student Film at Northwestern University. She was also in the feature films, Wes Cravens Dracula 2000 and Disney's The Kid. Coming out in theaters in April 2003 is her newest role in the movie Down With Love.

    During the same time period that some of these movies were released, she was also in the popular TV series, Star Trek: Voyager (which she joined in the 4th season) where she there played a character called "Seven of Nine (Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One)" - a half human, half borg. Most known for the cat suit she wore during the first few episodes, she responded to a published TV Guide article saying, "There are worse things you could be called than 'whiplash-inducing,' but as long as the character is intelligently written and gets challenging stories for me to play, I'm fine with it... as long as I can breathe."

    Now that Star Trek: Voyager is over, Jeri Ryan is on the show Boston Public. In this David E. Kelley show about a high school and its teachers, she plays Ronnie Cooke - a lawyer who decides to become a teacher after guest speaking in her friend's classroom.

    Fans might also like to know that this amazingly talented actress is also a mother to a son named, Alex (with whom she had with her now ex husband, Jack Ryan). Despite her fame, it's clear that she is still able to live with a domestic mindset and lifestyle. She often expresses the joys of being a mother and also considers herself a good cook! Especially when it comes to desserts, particularly pies. One of her more recent achievements is the opening of a restaurant called Ortolan (in southern California) which opened on February 8th, 2005.

    She currently resides in California where she lives with her son Alex (10).

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