Law & Order would have been canceled, series star Jill Hennessy revealed, if creator Dick Wolf did not add more women to its cast.
Hennessy joined the show in 1993 as Assistant District Attorney Claire Kincaid. “I came in the fourth season, and it was about to be canceled. Dick Wolf was being pressured to add women to the cast, so they decided to add two female characters,” she told Yahoo, indicating herself and her co-star S. Epatha Merkerson, who played NYPD Lieutenant Anita Van Buren.
Hennessy said Wolf’s acquiescence saved the show. “Within that year, the ratings went up, and it just got more and more successful,” she added.
The Daily Beast has reached out to a representative for Wolf for comment.
Hennessy went on to star in the series from its fourth to its sixth season, leaving the show in 1996. She and Merkerson joined the Season 4 cast alongside Sam Waterston, Steven Hill, Jerry Orbach, and Chris Noth.
Hennessy’s character was killed off in a car crash in the Season 6 finale after she mutually agreed to part ways with the show to pursue other opportunities at the end of her three-year contract.
Hennessy told TV Guide in 2009 that she would have “loved” to return to the show in a guest capacity, but exited to avoid typecasting by spending too long in the role.
She initially believed her character would survive the crash, she said then. “I made it clear I wanted to come back. I found out they killed me off from a friend who watched the show and told me, ‘Jill, they said you were dead!’ I was surprised, because I always thought I would return,” she said. “Even now, I’d love to come back for some bizarre flashbacks.”
The series continued without Hennessy until its 20th season. It was revived 12 years later and is now airing its 25th season. Its spinoff, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which still stars Mariska Hargitay, is currently in its 27th season.
