Josie Bissett

With credits that include TV guest shots, B-movies, and one soft-core title (Desire [1989]), Josie Bissett was perhaps ideally prepared for the outrageous fictional world of Fox's 1990s prime-time soap opera Melrose Place. Born on October 5th, 1970, in Seattle, WA, Bissett began appearing on TV sitcoms while in her late teens. Though she played a bit part as one of the bandmembers' girlfriends in Oliver Stone's biopic The Doors (1991), Bissett mainly worked in B-films as well as TV, including 1950s teen comedy Book of Love (1991), the Playboy model tale Posing: Inspired By Three Real Stories (1991), and the Danielle Steel adaptation Secrets (1992). Bissett became a TV star, though, when she was cast as put-upon wife Jane Mancini in Melrose Place in 1992. With its roundelay of affairs and no-holds-barred theatrics (often involving Jane's vile husband Michael and nefarious sister Sydney), Melrose Place attracted a devoted following for most of its seven-year run. Bissett left the series in 1997 and starred as an alluring nanny in the B-thriller Baby Monitor: Sound of Fear (1997) before returning for Melrose Place's final season in 1998-1999. The actress continued to be active through the 2000s, appearing in films such as The Sky is On Fire and Obituary. Bissett could be seen in a supporting role on the first two seasons of The Secret Life of the American Teenager, and co-starred in the Lifetime drama The Other Woman (both in 2008).