Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 10, 1963, Jeanne Marie Tripplehorn developed
an interest in performing through her father, guitarist
Tom Tripplehorn, who at one time
recorded with the pop group
Gary Lewis & The Playboys on
such hits as "This Diamond Ring". (Note: many references list Jeanne's
father's birth date as February 2, 1949, but this seems unlikely as he
would have been only 14 years old when she was born). Graduating
from Edison High School, Jeanne began her career as a local radio and
TV host.
Educated at both the University of Tulsa and the drama division of The
Juilliard School in New York City, she made her major TV debut in a
supporting role in Im Schatten des Todes (1991),
a fictional story that centered around President
Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg
Address. The next year she made a big splash with her second lead, in
Paul Verhoeven's thriller Basic Instinct (1992), in support
of Michael Douglas. In this
movie, which made a sex star out of
Sharon Stone, Jeanne's weird
psychiatrist role established her as a talent to be reckoned with,
although a torrid sex scene with Douglas certainly helped. She earned a
huge break when she replaced a pregnant
Robin Wright in the role of
Tom Cruise's wife in the box-office smash
Die Firma (1993). Her smart work in this
film afforded her the opportunity to work opposite other "top guns" in
the industry, including Kevin Costner in
the futuristic Waterworld (1995),
Gwyneth Paltrow in
Sie liebt ihn - sie liebt ihn nicht (1998) and
Hugh Grant in
Mickey Blue Eyes (1999). While
none of these roles impressed to a great degree, they nevertheless put
her in good standing. Reaching into her versatile bag of tricks, she
went on to play everything from a lesbian gangster in
Mike Figgis' experimental film, Timecode (2000), to a love interest of
left-wing activist Abbie Hoffman in
Steal This Movie (2000).
On stage, the lady with the strikingly open face and penetrating glare
made her Broadway bow in the role of "Masha" in
Anton Chekhov's "The Three Sisters", opposite Amy Irving and
Lili Taylor. Prior to this, she appeared off-Broadway in
John Patrick Shanley's "The Big Funk" in 1990, then co-starred with
Val Kilmer in a 1993 production of John Ford's 1630s play, "'Tis Pity She's a Whore". In 2002, Jeanne was one of a revolving door of guest stars to appear in the Actor's Alley play "The Guys", a tribute to the valiant firefighters of the 9/11 attack. On television, Jeanne appeared
less frequently but did star, opposite Arliss Howard, in a superlative
TV-movie adaptation of William Faulkner's
Der Strom (1997).
Back in the 1990s, she maintained a roller coaster relationship with actor/writer Ben Stiller. Engaged at one point in 1993, she even appeared on his early '90s TV show, The Ben Stiller Show (1992), on occasion. But the union broke up after six years. In 2000, Jeanne married actor Leland Orser of TV's Emergency Room: Die Notaufnahme (1994) fame. They appeared together in the TV movie Spuren in den Tod (2002) and the films Very Bad Things (1998) and Morning (2010), the latter one written and directed by Orser. The couple has one son, August Tripplehorn Orser, born in 2002.
Jeanne's career on TV has deservedly been on an upswing of late as the senior wife of polygamist Bill Paxton's three live-ins in the HBO,
drama, Big Love (2006); as Jackie Kennedy Onassis in the TV movie Die exzentrischen Cousinen der First Lady (2009); after joining the cast as Alex Blake in the series Criminal Minds (2005); and as Eleanor Schlafly in the political mini-series Mrs. America (2020) starring Cate Blanchett.
Into the millennium, Jeanne has also graced such films as In bester Gesellschaft - Eine Familie zum Abgewöhnen (2000), the Madonna misfire Stürmische Liebe - Swept away (2002), Dirty Movie (2005), Winged Creatures (2008), Kleine Lügen auf Bewährung (2010) and Ana (2020), as well as co-starring roles in Little Pink House (2017) with Catherine Keener and We Only Know So Much (2018) with Damian Young.
