Detective Jill Kirkendall

Played by Andrea Thompson: For most of her tenure in the 15th squad, Jill served as the emotional rock to partner Diane Russell's tower of Jell-O, as well as the most competent and confident cop in the precinct not named Sipowicz, Simone or Sorsenson. But her irrational attachment to her ex-husband Don, who manipulated her by threatening to embarrass, and, eventually, kill their two sons Kyle and Frank, led Jill to throw her career away. She and her boys are currently on the run from Internal Affairs investigators.

She had small film roles in "Delirious" and "Wall Street" before signing on to play vamp Genelle Erickson on CBS' "Falcon Crest." She bounced around in TV guest star roles for a few years before landing a role on the syndicated sci-fi series "Babylon 5" as telepath Talia Winters. She left "Babylon 5" for a recurring role on "JAG," but when the show moved from NBC to CBS, Thompson didn't move with it.

Fortunately, "NYPD Blue" creator David Milch was looking for a mature actress to join his testosterone-heavy show's detective's squad. Thompson made a number of appearances during the fourth season of "NYPD Blue" before being promoted to regular cast status at the start of the fifth season.

However, the stress of working on a Milch-produced show, where scripted pages were often handed to actors mere moments before a scene had to be shot, got to Andrea over the years. So did a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that she didn't want to act anymore. So after the seventh season of "Blue," she quit the business to pursue her dream of becoming a TV newswoman. After a one-year stint as a reporter for a local station in New Mexico, she had a controversial, widely-panned stint as an anchorwoman for CNN's Headline News, which she left after seven months. Most recently, she's worked as an on-air personality for Court TV.