Pauley Perrette began her acting career way back in the 1990s, much before the world came to know and fall in love with her on NCIS.
The star, who turned 56 on March 27, had a career portfolio that included everything from bartender to musician to criminology student, but she was always able to fall back on her acting skills.
While the NCIS alum retired from the craft in 2020, now living a quieter life in California devoted to her personal home projects and work with humanitarian causes, she will often revisit her life in the spotlight and the many hats she wore.
Her acting career began with bit parts on TV, mostly with one-episode appearances and supporting roles, commercials and voiceovers. For one of her earliest roles, she also received quite the makeover.
Pauley, then going by the name “Pauley P.” made an appearance on the ’90s fantasy comedy-drama Early Edition in a 1997 episode titled “Mob Wife.”
She played Theresa LaParco, a gun moll for a gangster, and dresses the part, sporting a big white fur coat and pale makeup, plus long ice blonde hair with blunt curtain bangs.
EARLY EDITION. Episode: ‘Mob Wife’
One of Pauley’s first TV appearances was in the CBS show “Early Edition” in 1997
A summary of the episode reads: “Theresa LaParco is the pretty moll of a big time mob boss named Frank Pirelli. When she decides to leave him, Pirelli tries to put a ‘hit’ on her.”
“Gary (Kyle Chandler) and Chuck (Fisher Stevens) make contact with Theresa as she attempts to go ‘on the run’, putting their lives in danger also. Besides having mobsters on her trail, the police are also looking for Theresa to testify against Pirelli.”
It continues: “Gary is questioned by both the police and Pirelli repeatedly, but he truly doesn’t know where Chuck and Theresa are. Complicating matters even more, Chuck has fallen in love with Theresa.”
Pauley Perrette during IAM.com Hollywood Launch Party at Quixote Studios in Hollywood, California, United States
The blonde stuck with Pauley during the early days of her career, and she gave the hair a chop in the new millennium, opting for a short yellow cropped cut with messy tendrils that epitomized the rise of the pop-punk movement.
By 2002, she had dyed her hair jet black and went for the look most associated with her NCIS role as Abby Sciuto, one she inhabited from 2003-2018, including the dark red lip, pigtails and more bangs.
Pauley Perrette attends TV Guide Emmy After Party at Social on August 27, 2006
By the early 2000s, she went jet black, just in time for Abby Sciuto
Last year, Pauley exclusively spoke about why she will “never again” return to acting. “I’m not ungrateful for the benefits that it gave to me”.
“But I’m a different person now and I want to be here for it – the good and the bad and the painful. I want to be me all the time, and it takes a good amount of courage for me to say that to myself but it’s authentically how I feel.”
Pauley Perrette attends the Human Rights Campaign 2023 Los Angeles Dinner at JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. LIVE on March 25, 2023 in Los Angeles, California
Pauley now sports bright rainbow-colored locks
“At this point in my life I have this deep need to find authenticity in everything, and being an actor, especially at certain points in my life, was a great escape; it’s like a drug because I didn’t have to be me, I could be somebody else. My character didn’t have all of the problems that I was having.”
