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I moved out to L.A. when I was 17, dropped out of high school, and pursued a career in music.

I grew up in Cleveland and started doing plays in high school. And I went to the University of Illinois, and I majored in drama. And after school, I went up to Chicago, because I didn't really know anybody in New York or Los Angeles, and I knew people who were doing plays in Chicago.

I moved to L.A. right after I finished high school, for three years, because everybody was telling me it was important to get down there, and then I kind of just decided for myself that I didn't need to be there to be doing this. I wanted out of some of the chaos that comes with living here and being an actor.

I grew up in Mississippi. I was there for 13 years, and then when I turned 13, I moved out to L.A.

When I got out of college, I moved to Seattle because it was the nearest big city and still didn't know if I wanted to be a composer, conductor, singer, actor. I just got day jobs and auditioned and took what came, and the theater doors were the ones opening the most.

I began my career performing in plays and musicals in New York, but by the mid-'80s, opportunities in Hollywood beckoned and I made the move to Los Angeles. It was a good decision. Work took off, but most important, I met my family out there - my husband, Bill, and the children we would adopt: Elijah, Mae-Mae, and Aron.

I was born in Connecticut. But my parents brought my sister and I to L.A. when-Hollywood, actually, when i was 6 months old.

I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, really in suburbia, so my mother was in community theatre plays.