Career
She is best known for her television roles as Brenda Barrett on General Hospital, Gina Kincaid on Beverly Hills, 90210, and Sam Marquez on Las Vegas. Marcil acted in a number of theatre productions before landing the role of Brenda Barrett on the soap opera General Hospital, in 1992. In February 1998, she was named Outstanding Lead Actress at the Soap Opera Digest Awards.
On June 14, 1993 she appeared in the Prince music video "Poorgoo", which was released officially in very limited numbers.
In 1994, she was cast in the Prince music video, "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World", and made People Magazine"s 50 Most Beautiful list the next year. She made her feature film debut in the film The Rock (1996), in which she appeared opposite Nicolas Cage, Sean Connery, and Editor Harris.
In 1998, after six years on General Hospital, she left the show to star in the made-for-television movie To Love, Honor and Deceive, and had a recurring guest role on the police drama High Incident, produced by Steven Spielberg. In November 1998, Marcil joined the Beverly Hills, 90210 cast as Gina Kincaid and remained with the show for one-and-a-half seasons.
In 1999, she starred in two independent films: Nice Guys Sleep Alone, with Sean O"Bryan, and This Space Between Us, with Jeremy Sisto.
In 2001, she was initially cast to join New York City Police Department Blue"s ninth season as a new series regular, Detroit Carmen Olivera. However, after her first appearance in "Johnny Got His Gold", the show decided to re-do the role and replaced Marcil with Jacqueline Obradors, as Detroit Rita Ortiz. Marcil made one more cameo appearance, as Detroit
Olivera, in the 11th season episode "Shear Stupidity".
Vanessa later joined the cast of the National Broadcasting Company drama Las Vegas as Sam Marquez, a casino host where she remained on the show for five seasons until 2008. That same year she became the host of Lifetime"s reality show Blush: The Search for America"s Greatest Makeup Artist as well as making a three episode guest appearance on the National Broadcasting Company show Lipstick Jungle.
In 2009, she starred in the Hallmark channel movie The Nanny Express as well as in the Lifetime movie One Hot Summer. In 2010, she was in the web series The Bannen Way and in August 2010 after a seven year absence, she made her return to General Hospital remaining on the show for a year before her departure from the show in July 2011.
Although she did make a guest appearance in April 2013 to commemorate the show"s 50th anniversary.