Pauley Perrette Ponders Life's Puzzles By Kate O'Hare
Sunday, August 21, 2005

No matter how many forensic dramas "CSI" producer Jerry Bruckheimer puts on the air, they're unlikely to have a character quite like crime-lab technician Abby Sciuto, played by musician, poet and former criminology student Pauley Perrette, on CBS' Tuesday-night drama "NCIS" (short for Naval Criminal Investigative Service).
Rolling around her high-tech lair, Abby can analyze voiceprints, process photos, identify DNA and hack into government computers, all while bopping to loud music and sucking down prodigious amounts of caffeine. She wears a lab coat, but it's thrown over Goth-chick clothes, accessorized with tattoos, studded dog collars and striped socks -- all of which go very well with her jet-black ponytails, white skin and red lipstick.

Oh, and Abby's guest room has a coffin for a bed.

"She's such a cartoon character," Perrette says, taking a break in her trailer during filming earlier this year. "Right after the show started, people told me that people dressed up as her for Halloween all the time. Think about it, ponytails, a tattoo, lab coat, done. It's cute."
Pulling out some old photos, Perrette reveals, "I actually have curly hair. Someone else made it look like this. And I'm blonde. I don't think I'm ever going to get this out of my hair. I could grow my blonde roots out to here and be half-blonde, but I would look like a skunk."

Perrette may not have Abby's hair, but she does share her high-energy personality, machine-gun patter and fascination with crime and criminal science. She's especially entranced with the unsolved 1947 Elizabeth Short murder in Los Angeles, fictionalized by James Ellroy in "The Black Dahlia."

"I'm a big fan of Ellroy," Perrette says. "The reason I got turned onto him is because I've been obsessed with the Black Dahlia case forever and ever."

Strangely enough, with Abby's black hair, Perrette even looks like Short, who was a pale-skinned, light-eyed brunette.

"I know, I know," Perrette says. "I know everything about her, Elizabeth Short. I've been obsessed with crime since I was a little kid, and I've been studying as if someone assigned me that case for years and years, since the first time I saw the crime scene photo."

In the famous shot, Short has been cut in two and carefully posed, with deep gashes on her face resembling a ghoulish smile (along with other slashes and cuts).

"There's something oddly beautiful about it," Perrette says. "That's a big deal, forensically, that they posed her. I had to back off of it, because I was like, 'Oh, God.' I went to school for criminal science. I spent the majority of my life obsessing over crime day and night. I'm a little paranoid. I thought, 'I need to go chill and eat some chips or something. This is too much.' So I made myself take a break."

Perrette even gave up her 10-year weekly date to watch "America's Most Wanted" on FOX.

"I'd keep the case logs," she says. "I knew everything. I love John Walsh. He's awesome. I have a list of four people that I want to meet, and he's on it."

Although serial killers fascinate her, Perrette says she's never seen the 1986 telefilm "The Deliberate Stranger," in which "NCIS" star Mark Harmon plays Ted Bundy.

Perrette has also had brushes with death in real life, including the losses of two friends: rock singer and bassist Bianca Halstead of the band Betty Blowtorch, who was killed in a car accident in 2001; and Irish drinking buddy Glenn Quinn ("Angel"), who died in a 2002 drug overdose.

"He was a wonderful guy, a great friend," says Perrette of Quinn. "We'd just sit and drink beer together and talk about junk. He was just sweet as pie. It's unfortunate, not the first time and won't be the last. It happens all the time."

On the positive side, Perrette also fights for life. She works with Burbank-based Chihuahua Rescue, which focuses on abandoned and abused dogs (mostly, but not exclusively, Chihuahuas).

Perrette has a former feral Chihuahua herself, and on her trailer wall is a picture of a wolf-dog hybrid that was adopted out. A longtime supporter of dog rescue and adoption, Perrette became interested in Chihuahua Rescue after reading a newspaper article about a huge raid on a California puppy mill.

"They had like 300 or something Chihuahuas there," she says, "who were all feral and abused. They had to euthanize 100 or so. This woman at Chihuahua Rescue, Kimi Peck, ended up with 174 of them. I tell everyone, breeders are bad.

"It's like forcing animals to have sex. There are too many dogs already. Every rescue I have, there are hundreds of dogs, and they're awesome dogs. So, please stop making more dogs."

On the work front, "NCIS" ended its second season with a shocking episode in which rogue double agent Ari (Rudolf Martin) shot and killed Special Agent Caitlin Todd (Sasha Alexander). The fall finds two new female characters signing on. Lauren Holly ("Picket Fences") plays new NCIS director Jenny Shepard, a possible love interest for Gibbs. Also, Cote de Pablo ("The Jury") makes her debut in the premiere episode as Ziva David, an Israeli agent and terrorist expert hot on the trail of Ari.

For Abby, it means a new season of teasing and sexual innuendo with "probie" Special Agent Timothy McGee (Sean Murray). Viewers aren't sure where the relationship is going.

"That's the point," Perrette says, "for no one to know, including me. She has a bunch of little boyfriends around, and he's her in-house guy. I think it's mutual. McGee makes little comments now and then that he didn't stay home on the weekend. It's postmodern geek love. They're not swimming in the ocean of traditional in any way."