Teri Polo portrays Michelle Schodowski Capra, Dr. Capra's highstrung wife from Los Angeles, perhaps best known for fending off wild animals with a Thighmaster. A journalist who is struggling with life in a very non-newsworthy place, Michelle Capra is the perfect counterpart to her doctor husband.

Born June 1, 1969 in Dover, Delaware, Polo began her show business career in toe shoes and leotards. By age thirteen, she had been accepted to the School of American Ballet in New York. She studied ballet for twelve years and was principal dancer for the Delaware Regional Ballet at age 17. However, a modeling contract during her last year of school would steer her in a different direction. Her modeling career soon led to a role as Kristen on the daytime drama Loving and a prime-time debut on TV 101.

Polo landed her first feature film in 1990, appearing in Born to Ride with John Stamos; other film appearances include Mystery Date, Passed Away, and House of the Spirits. She first appeared on Northern Exposure in 1994 and has since worked in television and movies. More TV projects include House of Frankenstein, Father for Brittany, and I'm With Her. She also appeared on episodes of Felicity and Sports Night. Starting in 2005, she has a reoccuring role on The West Wing. Films include Meet the Parents, Domestic Disturbance, Beyond Borders, and Meet the Fockers.

She appeared in the Lifetime movie For the Love of a Child in January 2006 with Peri Gilpin. Peri and Polo, respectively, play Sara O'Meara and Yvonne Fedderson, who were actresses in a USO troupe in Japan in 1959, when fate changed their lives. They crossed paths with nine orphans lost in the streets after a storm. One thing led to another as they tried to help the shunned, half-American children.

She was married to Tony Moore, a photographer, but are now divorced. They have one son, Griffin, born in 2002. She also has a Siberian Husky. She is featured in the February 2005 issue of Playboy magazine. She says, "I've always been cast as the girl next door. So I figured I'd change my image. Hmm, change your image ... be naked."

In 2006, she appeared in Love is a Four Letter Word for the Hallmark Channel. The film revolves around two divorce lawyers who are representing clients divorcing each other and who fall in love while settling the case.

Polo, along with Sarah Jones and KaDee Strickland starred in short-lived "The Wedding Planners," David E. Kelley's 2007 Fox series about three sisters in the nuptials business. Polo played Jane, the oldest sister, known as the conservative one. Fox halted work on the series before all of the ordered episodes had been completed.

Polo and her drummer boyfriend, Jamie Wollam, welcomed baby girl, Bayley on Dec. 20, 2007. This is the first child for Polo, 38, and Wollam together. They each have a son from previous marriages: Polo has Griffin, 5, and Wollam has Carter, 9. Polo and Wollam have been together since 2004, after they met on the set of a music video for his former band, Avion.

Polo will appear in the independent horror flick Two:Thirteen, opening sometime in 2008. She also will star in another horror flick, The Beacon, as a woman grieving the loss of her four-year-old son. She moves into a new apartment building with her husband (The Shield’s David Rees Snell), and once there she begins to see the ghost of another young boy who died when he fell down the elevator shaft. It is due out in 2009.

She returns to the Hallmark channel in the telepic Second Honeymoon, also starring Jason Priestley and Cheech Marin. The film is about a childless couple, longing to have a baby, takes a vacation to a small Mexican village where the spirit of the locals, in particular a disabled young boy, teaches them about a Saint who performs miracles: one for the boy and one for the couple. Airdate TBD.

There is also rumor of another Fockers movie but nothing definite yet.