Monica Louise Brokaw was born on June 30, 1971, the second of four daughters in
a very close Roman Catholic family. Her father, a salaried inventor, sent
Monica's photograph to a local modeling agency when she was 12 years old. Monica
was hired immediately, and with her father as her co-manager she modeled
throughout her teens. All of the Brokaw daughters attended Villa Angela Catholic
School for girls.
When Monica was 18, she moved to Miami, Florida, and landed a job on a
children's show that shot in Peru. She then pursued her modeling career in
Chicago and Miami before moving to Los Angeles in 1994. When she was 24, Monica
moved to Hollywood and began working on the soap-opera, The Young and the
Restless as Sharon Newman. Her first real breakthrough into the film
industry was in Con Air (1997) with Nicholas Cage. She soon landed roles
in box-office smashes such as Patch Adams. Monica currently stars as
lawyer Lori Colson in Boston Public (2004), a popular television series
about a high-profile law firm.
Monica gave birth to her first child when she was 19 years old. That same
year, she married Tom Potter. Whether Tom is the father of her first son is
unclear, but they did have a second son together several years later. Monica and
Tom are now divorced, and Monica has recently been connected with Adam Duritz of
the Counting Crows. In fact, the song "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby" from the album
This Desert Life was written about her.
