The Tragic Story Of NCIS Star Lauren Holly's Heartbreaking Loss

Lauren Holly has been acting since the mid '80s, playing both comedic and serious characters. Many fans know her best for her time playing Jenny Shepard on "NCIS," as she appeared in 67 episodes (per IMDb). As Screen Rant detailed, Holly's character first appeared during Season 3, and she was both the agency director and a former flame of Agent Gibbs. Holly departed in Season 5, and her character's exit was a shocking one. It turns out that off-screen, Holly has endured some shocking times as well.

During Season 5 of "NCIS," a terminal illness diagnosis rocked Holly's character of Shepard. Before the illness could even play out, she was killed off in a shoot-out at a diner in the desert. Holly wrote on her website she had been hesitant about joining "NCIS" and only intended to stay for a handful of episodes. Plans for the character changed, and Holly ultimately moved her family from Chicago, Illinois out to California so she could continue "NCIS." After two seasons, "To be honest, now that the work bug had bitten me again, I got bored with my part of the 'Director,'" she admitted. The decision to kill Shepard was made, and she went out in a blaze of glory. 

During her early years of acting, Holly experienced a family tragedy that has played a significant role in shaping who she is as both an actor and person today.

Long before Lauren Holly joined "NCIS," she had a role in the movie "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story" in Hong Kong (per People). Just as she was slated to begin filming, in 1993, Holly experienced a tragic loss. Her younger brother Alexander, who was just 14 years old at the time, died alone in a home fire. "There are no words to describe how I felt," Holly explained of his death. During a 1995 interview with Movieline, she shared (via Lebeau's Le Blog), "The way it changed my life is I will never be 100 percent happy again. I just won't."

At the time of that interview, Alexander would have just turned 18. "There's always that catch—I think about him all the time and I think about what he would look like," Holly noted. "It will make me sad forever." She also acknowledged the experience "made [her] feel more vulnerable" and she worried about things frequently. Ultimately, Holly credited her parents and grandparents for helping her get through it.

The actor also told This Mom Loves that the "Dragon" film and character significantly influenced her personal life, as she found Asia to be "very healing." She credited her co-star Jason Scott Lee for assisting in that healing, and she got quite close to Brandon Lee's family during that time. "It was just a very emotional and enlightening experience, that movie," she shared.

Prior to joining "NCIS," Lauren Holly and her then-partner Francis Greco adopted three boys, detailed People. They named their first son Alexander, after her brother (per Hobart and William Smith Colleges). Holly told Closer Weekly she chose to take a break from acting while her sons were little, saying, "I'm a hands-on mom, and it was important for me to be with them." After staying away from the industry for a while, Holly returned to acting as it was what she loved to do and "I think it's important for them to see me working." Holly noted she'd known since she was a child she would adopt some day, and once she and Greco adopted the three boys in a short period of time, "that was it."

When asked about her biggest life lesson while chatting with Closer Weekly, Holly shared an answer that may have come in part from having lost her brother. "Keep your friends and family close, because that's all that matters," she detailed. She and her extended family and friends started "The 'A' Fund for Architecture and Archaeology" in honor of her beloved brother. "A" had been his nickname, and before he died, he'd traveled extensively and developed "a deep rooted fascination for architecture and archaeology." The fund was created in Holly's brother's memory "to help fulfill the dreams, hopes, and plans for years to come, of students studying these subjects."