- Born
- Birth nameJeri Lynn Zimmerman
- Height5′ 8″ (1.73 m)
- Jeri Ryan was born Jeri Lynn Zimmerman on February 22, 1968 in Munich, West Germany, to Gerhard Florian Zimmerman, a Master Sergeant in the United States Army, and his wife Sharon, a social worker. She and her older brother Mark grew up on several military bases, including Kansas, Maryland, Hawaii, Georgia and Texas. Finally, at age 11, her father retired from the Army and her family settled down in Paducah, Kentucky. After graduating from Lone Oak High School in 1986, she attended Northwestern University Chicago as a National Merit Scholar. While studying there, she won a number of beauty contests (a.o.- sixth annual Miss Northwestern Alpha Delta Phi Pageant in 1989).
With a B.S. degree in Theatre, she came to Los Angeles, California and since then she has been on several television series and films - including popular series like Matlock (1986), Melrose Place (1992) and Star Trek: Voyager (1995) as well as Dark Skies (1996). Her television experience also includes roles in a variety of telefilms including Nightmare in Columbia County (1991), NBC's In the Line of Duty: Ambush in Waco (1993), Co-ed Call Girl (1996), The Sentinel (1996), Men Cry Bullets (1998), Dracula 2000 (2000), The Last Man (2000) and Down with Love (2003). Jeri Ryan resides in an area of Los Angeles, California with her husband chef Christophe Eme, her son Alex and daughter Gisele.- IMDb mini biography by: Mia
- SpousesChristophe Eme(June 16, 2007 - present) (1 child)John Clemens "Jack" Ryan(June 15, 1991 - August 27, 1999) (divorced, 1 child)
- ChildrenAlex RyanGisele Lynn Eme
- ParentsGerhard Florian ZimmermanSharon Zimmerman
- RelativesMark Zimmerman(Sibling)
- Often plays powerful, authoritative women
- Blonde hair and blue eyes
- Seductive deep voice
- Turned down the role of Seven of Nine on Star Trek: Voyager (1995) four times. She only accepted the role after repeated lobbying by executive producer Jeri Taylor.
- Turned down a cameo in Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) because of her busy schedule on Boston Public (2000). The cameo was subsequently given to her Star Trek: Voyager (1995) castmate Kate Mulgrew.
- Miss Illinois 1989. Was fourth in the 1990 Miss America Pageant and won the swimsuit competition.
- She was in the running for the role of Mystique (Raven Darkholme) in the sci-fi action film X-Men (2000), which went to Rebecca Romijn.
- Daughter of Gerhard Florian "Jeri" and Sharon Zimmerman. She has an older brother: Mark Zimmerman. Named after her father, a Master Sergeant in the United States Army.
- [on her ex-husband Jack Ryan who is running for United States Senator in Illinois] He's a good man and good father.
- There are three things pageant women do. There's the Vaseline thing, which I didn't do. There's duct taping your boobs, which I never did because I'm not into pain. The third thing is using athletic spray adhesive on your butt to keep your swimsuit in place. I did do that. So one out of three ain't bad.
- [on her Seven of Nine costume] Initially, I would stay in the costume much longer than I ended up staying in it, because it takes about twenty minutes to get into. Someone has to dress me and undress me. It's a production break if I have to get out of the costume to use the rest room or something. It grinds to a halt unless they can shoot something without me, which typically they can't, if it's a scene that I'm in. So in the interest of being a team player, the first season, I would not take rest room breaks, I just didn't drink anything on set, which is not the healthiest thing to do.
- When I started out on Star Trek: Voyager (1995), they had to tell me everything about Star Trek, because I knew nothing about it. I had never seen the original series, I had never seen Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987). I think I'd seen a couple of episodes here and there - of the original series, probably. Never seen Voyager. Didn't know what a Borg was. They gave me a copy of Star Trek: First Contact (1996), the movie, so I could at least see what a Borg was. They also gave me a copy of the Star Trek Encyclopedia, whatever it is, so that I could bone up on my Star Trek knowledge. Fortunately, it sort of worked for the character that I wouldn't know any of the backstories of the people on Voyager, because she was coming in cold, like I was. That was actually helpful as opposed to detrimental.
- I grew up as an Army brat, so I moved around a lot as a child. Always being the new kid was tough, but it taught me to be very adaptable and it certainly got me ready for the nomadic life of an actor!
- Boston Public (2000) - $45,000 per episode.
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