Holly Marie Combs (born December 3, 1973) is an American actress and television producer. She is known for her roles as Kimberly Brock in the CBS series Picket Fences (1992–1996), Piper Halliwell in The WB series Charmed (1998–2006) and Ella Montgomery in the Freeform series Pretty Little Liars (2010–2017).
Combs was born in San Diego, California and has described herself as being of Irish descent. At the time of her birth, her mother, Lauralei Combs (née Berckhem), was sixteen years old and her father was seventeen. Combs's biological parents married, but the two split up after two years, feeling they were too young to make a marriage work. While Combs was learning to walk, she fell and hit her head on a marble table, resulting in a noticeable 'split' at the top of her right eyebrow. She went through many different homes with her mother, near the beach in San Diego often having very little privacy, while her mother attempted to pursue an acting career. When Combs was seven, she and her mother moved to New York City where she spent most of her growing years. She was 12 when her mother married her stepfather. In New York City, Combs attended Beekman Hill Elementary and then the Professional Children's School. In an interview when she was in Sydney, Australia for Supanova, she said that she was a certified scuba diver at 13.