American actor Jon Hensley was born on August 26, 1965 in Browns Mills, New Jersey. After working different positions at his family’s French restaurant—from cook to busboy—he moved to New York and studied journalism at the New York University. He tried his luck in auditioning for a role in the soap opera Another World, which proved to be unsuccessful. However, this helped him snag a role in another daytime soap, One Life to Live. He played the character of Brody Price for a few months in 1985, after which he was immediately let go.
However, that role led him to what is perhaps his biggest role yet. Later in 1985, he joined the cast of the daytime soap As the World Turns, where he took on the role of Holden Snyder. Most of his time on the drama was spent on the budding romance between him and rich girl Lily Walsh (Martha Byrne, and later Noelle Beck), a somewhat unlikely pairing because of their differences in class and outlook. However, this catapulted him to soap superstardom, and has made his pairing with Lily a supercouple.
Hensley left the soap in 1988, during which he studied at the Shakespeare Academy of Music, Drama and Art in London. He returned to ATWT in 1990, only to leave again in 1995, during which he starred in the television movie Wounded Heart and several episodes of Almost Perfect and Beverly Hills 90210. He would return in 1997, when the producers of As the World Turns took him in after a bidding war with another soap, All My Children. His role in the show earned him three Daytime Emmy nominations, in 1986, 1987 and 2001.