Tracey Needham

Tracey Needham called on her own past experiences with her three brothers and playing football to play the strong but feminine Lieutenant Junior Grade Megan "Meg" Austin (USN) in the first season of JAG (1995). As the female star of a military action-adventure series, Needham portrayed a Navy Judge Advocate General attorney who was also a computer-weapons expert. "Meg is a bright, strong woman constantly trying to prove herself in a largely male environment", she says. When Tracey was a child, the Needham family moved from Dallas, Texas, her place of birth, to Denver, Colorado, she was eight years old but, due to her father's work, they had to shuttle back and forth between the two cities.

Needham had grown to her full statuesque (5'11") height by 8th grade. After she took a strong interest in theater she unfortunately took to heart her high school theater director's ignorant and hurtful suggestion that she was too tall to appear onstage (the theatre director apparently never heard of Sigourney Weaver, Nancy Marchand, and other successful tall actresses) and worked behind the scenes on the technical crew, instead. After her graduation from high school, she traveled through Europe and Australia. In 1988, aged 21, she arrived in Los Angeles to model, study acting, and audition for roles. She made her TV acting debut in the drama series Jake and the Fatman (1987). After a few more acting classes, she got her first big break on the critically acclaimed ABC drama Life Goes On (1989), playing free-spirited big sister Paige Thatcher.