(source: an official press release from Witt-Thomas Productions in 1989.)

Jo Anderson stars as Diana Bennett, a maverick homicide detective who is called upon by the District Attorney’s office to solve some of New York City’s most difficult cases on “Beauty and the Beast,” a contemporary fable filled with action, suspense and romance, airing Wednesday nights at 8:00 PM (ET) on the CBS Television Network. In the hour-long dramatic series, Bennett is a highly respected member of the city’s Special Crimes unit who prefers to work alone. Willing to take on impossible cases that no one else will touch, she pursues the mystery of Catherine Chandler’s disappearance and death.

Jo Anderson recently starred in the NBC series “Dream Street,” n which she portrayed Marianne McKinney, a teacher and single mother in a blue-collar town. “Dream Street’s” producers, Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick, also cast Anderson in last year’s premiere episode of their Emmy-winning drama “Thirty-Something” as the ghost of a woman who Hope reads about in a journal.

Born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in Tenafly, New Jersey, Anderson was one of four children in a creative family, and studied dance for years while growing up. She attended Adelphi University on Long Island, after which she studied mime and other theater arts at the Valley studio in Winsconsin. She established herself as an actress in New York, and began studying with the actor Michael Moriarty, who claims she is “as gifted as any actress of her generation and, what’s even more surprising, she writes as beautifully as she performs.” Working with Moriarty proved to be the turning point in Jo’s professional career, and she continues to study with him.

Anderson starred in a number of theatrical productions in New York, and was also a writer/poet who participated in readings throughout the city. Her writing culminated in a one-woman show she wrote and performed under Moriarty’s guidance in 1985 called “Marie,” in which she portrayed Madame Curie. This was a work-in-progress which she later performed at the Actor’s Studio in Los Angeles.

Jo Anderson moved to Los Angeles two-and-a-half years ago from New York.