Paige Turco Bio
Jean Paige Turco, known professionally as Paige Turco, is an American actress born on May 17, 1965, in Boston, Massachusetts. She first gained recognition for her work in daytime soap operas and later built a steady career across film and prime-time television. Turco is best known for playing April O’Neil in the early 1990s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films and, more recently, for her long-running role as Dr. Abigail Griffin on the CW post-apocalyptic drama The 100. Her work spans action films, network dramas, and anthology horror, giving her one of the most varied résumés of any American television actress of her generation.
Early Life and Background
Paige Turco was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Joyce Jean (Jodoin) Turco and David Vincent Turco. When she was one year old, her mother moved the family to Springfield, Massachusetts, where she was raised after the death of her father. Turco is of Italian, French-Canadian, and English ancestry. She took ballet lessons as a young girl and originally planned to become a classical ballerina.
She trained as a dancer at the Walnut Hill School in Natick, Massachusetts, graduating in 1983, and performed as a soloist with the New England Dance Conservatory, the Amherst Ballet Theatre Company, and the Western Massachusetts Ballet Company. An ankle injury ended her hopes of a professional dance career, a loss she later described as deeply painful. After leaving dance behind, she shifted her focus to acting and graduated from Bay Path College in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, in 1987. She then majored in drama at the University of Connecticut.
Path to Acting
Turco’s transition from dance to acting came quickly after she completed her studies. Her classical training gave her strong discipline and stage presence, both of which helped her move into television work almost immediately. Her first professional job as an actress came in 1987, when she joined the cast of a long-running CBS daytime drama.
That early soap role opened the door to steady television work, including a stint on another major ABC daytime series in the early 1990s. By the time she was cast in a major studio film franchise, she had already established herself as a reliable performer on the small screen. Her path from ballet student to film and television actress is a story of steady reinvention rather than overnight success.
Paige Turco Career
Early Career (1987–1993)
Paige Turco made her television acting debut in 1987 as Dinah Marler on the CBS soap opera Guiding Light, a role she held until 1989. She then moved to the ABC soap opera All My Children, where she played Melanie Cortlandt from 1989 to 1992. These early daytime roles gave her consistent screen time and a foundation in fast-paced television production.
In 1991, Turco took on the role of April O’Neil in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, a major studio film based on the popular comic-book and cartoon franchise. She returned to the role two years later in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III in 1993. The films introduced her to a much wider audience and remain among her most recognized works.
Breakthrough (1994–2013)
Following the success of the Ninja Turtles films, Turco moved into a string of prime-time television projects. In 1994, she co-starred with Catherine Hicks in the NBC primetime soap Winnetka Road. The following year, she starred as Gail Emory in the CBS cult favorite American Gothic, which ran from 1995 to 1998. She also took on recurring roles on NYPD Blue from 1996 to 1997 and on Party of Five from 1997 to 1998, where she played Annie Mott, a single mother and recovering alcoholic.
From 2001 to 2003, she starred as graphic artist Terri Lowell in the CBS drama series The Agency, working within the world of international espionage. She co-starred with Mark Wahlberg and Greg Kinnear in the 2006 football drama Invincible, playing Carol Vermeil, the wife of coach Dick Vermeil, and appeared opposite Dwayne Johnson in the Walt Disney film The Game Plan in 2007. She also had a recurring role in the third season of Rescue Me in 2006, and was a regular cast member in the ABC series Big Shots from 2007 to 2008, playing Lisbeth, the ex-wife of a cosmetics company CEO played by Dylan McDermott. Turco continued her busy run with multiple episodes of Damages in 2009, a guest role on Life on Mars in 2009, appearances on The Good Wife in 2010, Blue Bloods in 2011, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in 2011, and a recurring part as Zoe Morgan on Person of Interest from 2011 to 2015.
Notable Works and Milestones
Turco’s signature work for a new generation of viewers came when she was cast as Doctor Abigail Griffin in the CW post-apocalyptic drama The 100, beginning in 2014. She starred in the main cast for the first six seasons, from 2014 to 2019, alongside Eliza Taylor, Henry Ian Cusick, Marie Avgeropoulos, and Lindsey Morgan. She briefly returned to the role in 2020 for the series finale, and her character’s relationship with her on-screen daughter Clarke became one of the emotional centerpieces of the show. She also appeared as Linda Pride in CBS’s NCIS: New Orleans in 2014 and 2020, and played a chapter in the 2020 anthology horror film Books of Blood.
Paige Turco Award Nominations
Verified records of formal award nominations for Paige Turco are limited, and the available sources do not provide a confirmed list of nominations that meets the standard required for inclusion here. As a result, a detailed summary of nominations cannot be presented with the certainty this section requires.
Paige Turco Awards Won
Verified records of major award wins for Paige Turco are not available in the reviewed sources, and no specific trophies or honors can be confirmed with the level of certainty required for a published summary. Because of this, a confirmed list of awards won is not presented here.
Paige Turco Family
Paige Turco was born to David Vincent Turco and Joyce Jean (Jodoin) Turco. Her father died when she was an infant, and her mother raised her in Springfield, Massachusetts. She has spoken about the lasting impact of losing her father at a very young age.
Turco was married to Irish actor Jason O’Mara from 2003 until their divorce in 2017. The couple has one son together, David, who was born in February 2004 and named after Turco’s late father. Family has remained a private but important part of her life, even as her career has taken her across different genres and continents.
Personal Life
Outside of her acting work, Paige Turco is known to be a practicing Roman Catholic. Her marriage to Jason O’Mara lasted more than a decade, from 2003 to 2017, and produced one child. Since her divorce, she has largely kept her personal life out of the public eye, focusing instead on her ongoing work in television and film.