Growing up in rural Indiana just north of Fort Wayne, Jill spent the majority of her childhood creating elaborate worlds for her Barbies and stuffed animals on her family’s sprawling 30 acre farm. It came as no surprise to anyone that she fell in love with acting after starring as Dracula in an 8th grade play.
By 18, she had won a state speech title and matriculated to Bradley University on a theater scholarship.
Note: it shouldn't have surprised anyone when Jill came out in her first year of college after wearing bolo ties and doing everything she could do to avoid kissing boys, yet there was shock.
It was the mid-1990's, after all. Even Ellen was in the closet then.
Jill’s first professional role in Hollywood was a small guest star on Days of Our Lives. Her recurring stint on the original Beverly Hills, 90210 earned her a SAG card, and she continued to land guest starring roles until she found her first big success as the co-creator of the viral hit We’re Getting Nowhere.
Regarded by the press as “the video blog that started it all” for LGBTQ+ new media, the popularity of the award-winning series, hosted by the Viacom-owned afterellen.com, led to a development deal with Logo and a string of roles on stage, television, and film.
She managed to work with two of her favorite childhood 80's icons: Dee Wallace and David Keith - twice!, become a "Spelling Girl," and murder Meatloaf (the singer) in an otherwise awful movie.
Then came a plot twist: as one of only a handful of out actors in the mid-aughts, Jill made a conscious choice to embrace visibility in the community, and followed We're Getting Nowhere with two socio-political video blogs for Shewired.com: The Violet Underground and The Gloves Are Off, often going live from protests and events.
Leveraging the power of the LGBTQ+ press, Jill pushed for greater visibility in mainstream media and authenticity in casting. Her activism led to a seat on the Screen Actor’s Guild LGBT National Board.
Frustrated with the lack of opportunities in mainstream media, she co-created, wrote, and starred in three of her own award-winning scripted comedy series and went on to produce PSAs, sketch comedy, and feature films.
Some of them were even good.
15 years of micro-budget producing culminated in the creation of Fair Play Films in the winter of 2023. Fair Play Films is a production and distribution initiative focused on crafting quality micro-budget content created for and by underrepresented filmmakers.
With a slate of a dozen narrative and unscripted projects, Fair Play prioritizes cost effectiveness, representation, and profitability while addressing the urgent need for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the film industry.
Basically, after all these years, she's still trying to get queer content made.
