Jeanna Von Oy, Ready for the grown up Ms. Jeanna Von Oy? I wasn’t. I was expecting to meet the cute young girl that we have watched literally grow up before our eyes as a child actress on shows like Lenny, Blossom and The Parkers. Ringing the doorbell to her cloistered domain in L.A., I was surrounded by sunshine peaking through the trees. The door opens and I am greeted not by the girl I was expecting, but a sophisticated looking young woman and I was taken aback. Whoa! She stands with stunning long auburn tresses cascading down her back. A smart black turtleneck and dark blue jeans wrapped her body, and leather black-heeled boots give her petite stature an extra boost.

Jeanna greeted us with a flashing smile, “Hello, and welcome to my home.” As we stepped inside the decor immediately caught my attention. There is a huge red velvet couch and black and red velvet chair with draped gauze and fluffy fringed pillows. Candles and bookshelves are arranged throughout the room, and another Victorian style velvet couch and chair sits in front of the fireplace. The feel is very romantic. Jeanna has done all the decorating herself and has been living in her home for nearly nine years. We followed her into the kitchen where we were introduced to her younger brother and sister who have come from Connecticut and are living with her until they find places of their own.

“Can I get you guys some coffee? And I made us some croissants and fruit.” Jeanna gestures towards the artfully arranged plate of strawberries and kiwi. She picks up a huge green coffee mug that nearly swallows her small face as she sips from it. I make a comment on the mug and she smiles softly, “I love these cups, they were given to me by a very dear friend that passed away.” She was referring to Michele Dee, who played the popular character of Urkie’s girlfriend on the show Family Matters before losing a battle with cancer nearly 6 years ago. “I miss her a lot and think about her every time I drink from these huge cups. They are very special to me and I won’t let anybody else use them.”

Jeanna looks at a photograph of Michele and her hugging that she has posted on the refrigerator and her eyes sadden for a moment. Looking up she shakes her head as if to snap back to the present and says, “Let me show you the rest of the house.”

We walk into the dining room that carries the same romantic theme with a huge carved oak table with a fur overlay and candles gracing it. My eyes are drawn to the walls. She has stenciled quotes around the entire room. I can’t help but laugh as I read this one “Get your tongue out of my mouth, I’m kissing you goodbye.” Another says, “Life is too short to drink cheap wine.” There are roughly 30 or so more sprawled across the walls. “It makes for interesting dinner conversation.” She says. “I have gotten so many comments on this room and some of my friends have even taken the idea for their rooms at home.” Jeanna holds a strong appreciation for poetry and books. She takes me over to one of around five or six bookshelves she has in her house. “I love books and have a plethora of literary fascinations, from the works of Shakespeare and then my psychology books, oh and here are my books on serial killers, some of these are pretty disgusting but I have a fascination for them because I am curious around the psychology behind it. You know I have always wanted to play an FBI agent ever since I was a child.

As I look around, there are framed pictures of hand written poetry from original artists hanging in her bedroom and throughout her home. “Some of these works may not be so beautiful and the hand writing may be difficult to read but to me it is just so interesting to have someone’s words in my house. I have written music and poetry myself ever since I was a little girl and I go through phases. I spent 5 months singing and writing country songs and even recording some demos in Nashville. Music is another passion of mine.” Jeanna has a very active curiosity and her musing takes her into many new projects like cooking and photography. “I love to cook and much like a man can’t seem to ask for directions, neither can I seem to follow a recipe.” She laughs, “I started with a trainer about 6 months ago but I love food so to find a trainer that understood that life is meant to be enjoyed. She walks me to the entertainment room, which contains a big screen television, a pool table, (she admits she can’t play) a “comfy” couch and a large armoire. The wall is decorated with another one of her passions.... photography. “This is a picture I took of my grandmother.” She points to a black and white photo of a graceful silver-haired woman sitting in the window as light cascades through shadowing one side of her face. “The other I took when I went on the USO tour for the troops in the Middle East.” She went several months prior to the September 11 tragedy. Other pictures on the wall include one of an elephant, some architecture and a homeless women covered head to toe in a black smock holding her child in the streets of Jordan. Jeanna has obviously done a lot of growing up, and she talked about what it was like to do most of it in front of the eyes of millions of television viewers.

“The strangest part of it was watching myself grow up. I can still go back and see the most awkward times of my life. It is really frightening most of the time (she gives a gut laugh) there is a small percent of time where I think it's cute and go ‘oh look at me!’ That is a very small percentage! It’s kind of cool though because it is something to show your kids later, you know? You got half of your life on tape, who needs home videos?”

On a professional level, Jeanna speaks on some of the characters she has had to play. “I have liked some characters and really hated others... For example, I played a girl who had a baby and threw her child in a dumpster. Now it’s really hard to find an understanding in that. A lot of roles require research, but if I am playing an alcoholic I am not necessarily going to go out and get drunk every night for 3 weeks just to practice for the character. Some people really do get into it that much, you know.” She lets out a deep chuckle. “I admit that I did do a little research on a role that I did of a stripper and I had to give a lap dance and do the moves, you know. I went to a strip club and got a few pointers from the girls there. It was kind of fun.”

Jeanna’s compassion keeps her active in many charities. “One of the first ones I started was called The Shirt off my Back. Basically, when you do a lot of charity work they are constantly giving you baseball caps and tee shirts. I ended up with this trunk full of tee shirts and I am not a real tee shirt person. So I thought certainly I can do something with these tee shirts that can benefit someone else. I went around to my friends that were in the industry that were in the same boat. I got them to sign all of their items and donated them to smaller charities who didn’t have the corporate backing, to have them auctioned off and then used the money to help their kids. It is a great feeling. I don’t do these things because I have to, although I feel that anybody in this business should. Being in the public eye, we are in a better position to do for others, but clearly I want people to do it out of the goodness of their hearts, if they don’t then they are doing it for the wrong reasons.”

As the conversation turns back to a lighter note Jeanna shares with me her views on Flossin’. “Flossin’, there are two different kinds of Flossin’ the money type where a place has a lot of beautiful expensive things in them or there is the personal style type of Flossin’. Both encompass a lifestyle of people that we look up to and wish that we were in the same position. Either they are wearing something big and shiny or they have a 10 million dollar house on the hill. Then there is the kind of Flossin’ I do in my home where my house is Flossin’ because it is my own style and not just a collection of expensive things that mean nothing personally.”

On that note Jeanna dances off to pillage her closet for an upcoming photo shoot. She is so full of life, but maybe because she is so full of coffee. At any rate it is easy to get caught up in her vigor and as I leave she hugs me good-bye. Charming woman I think to myself, and I leave with a quote in my head from James Barrie “Charm is a sort of bloom on a woman. If you have it you don’t need to have anything else; and if you don’t have it, it doesn’t much matter what else you have.” Jeanna definitely has it. By Fawn Aberson

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This article was originally published in Flossin Magazine. This article is edited by Edna Waters. This article is optimized for web by Steven Christian (Artist | Author | Podcaster).