The New Orleans Girl Behind TV's Favorite Forensic Scientist
Pauley Perrette was born on March 27, 1969, in New Orleans, Louisiana, and spent her childhood moving across the South — Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, the Carolinas — before eventually landing in New York and then Los Angeles. But New Orleans was first, and you can see it in the character that made her famous: the mix of intellect and eccentricity, the refusal to be put in a box, the warmth underneath the unconventional exterior.
Perrette studied criminal justice at Valdosta State University and then at John Jay College in New York. She was trained for the real thing — labs and evidence and forensic science — before Hollywood figured out that she could play the part better than anyone else alive.
Abby Sciuto: Fifteen Years of NCIS
From 2003 to 2018, Perrette played Abby Sciuto on NCIS — the eccentric, Goth-styled forensic scientist who became one of the most beloved characters on network television. Abby was smart, kind, fiercely loyal, and completely unlike any other character on a procedural crime show. She wore platform boots and pigtails to a government lab and was the most competent person in the building. By 2010, Perrette's Q Score — the industry measure of audience likability — ranked alongside Tom Hanks and Morgan Freeman.
Fifteen seasons. Hundreds of episodes. A character so popular that her departure from the show made national news. Perrette made Abby Sciuto into something rare on television: a character that audiences genuinely loved, not just watched.
Beyond the Screen
Off-screen, Perrette was a lead singer in the all-female band Lo-Ball, a published poet, and a documentary filmmaker — she directed and produced Citizen Lane, about civil rights attorney Mark Lane. She retired from acting in 2020 after the cancellation of her CBS sitcom Broke. Pauley Perrette came from New Orleans and brought the city's spirit to every role she played: smart, unconventional, and impossible not to love.
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