Noah Wyle

Best known in the mid-'90s for playing the earnest but often fumbling Dr. John Carter on the hit television drama ER, Noah Wyle has also appeared in a few feature films, notably Swing Kids in which he played a chillingly ardent member of the Hitler Youth. He is the lead in TNT's new sci-fi series from Steven Spielberg titled Falling Skies. Wyle plays the leader of a group of soldiers and civilians that battle against an alien force, according to the network.

Born June 4, 1971, the son of Marjorie (née Speer), a registered orthopedic head nurse, and Stephen Wyle, an electrical engineer and entrepreneur, Hollywood native Wyle (pronounced WY-lee) became interested in acting as a high school student at The Thacher School in rural Ojai. He further explored drama by attending a summer acting workshop at Northwestern University in Chicago, and returned to California to ambitiously direct a production of Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit. After graduating in 1989, he studied acting with Larry Moss and worked as a busboy while appearing in more stage productions. He began to get his foot in the screen acting door with a bit part in the 1990 NBC miniseries Blind Faith, and the following year, made his feature debut as the doomed son in a dysfunctional family in Crooked Hearts (1991) alongside Jennifer Jason Leigh and Peter Berg. A supporting role as a marine driver who testifies at a court martial in Rob Reiner's Oscar-nominated Best Picture A Few Good Men (1992), and one as a leader of a group of Lindy-hopping Hitler Youth in Thomas Carter's Swing Kids (1993), raised his stock in Hollywood. Wyle was also part of the ensemble including Rick Schroeder, Dermot Mulroney and Lucy Deakins in the 1960s high school drama, There Goes My Baby (1994). In a charming lead that tapped into the actor's strength for old school derring-do, he was also cast that year as Sir Lancelot opposite Sheryl Lee's Guinevere (Lifetime, 1994), a feminist retelling of the Arthurian legend.

Wyle's career went into overdrive at the end of 1994 when he was cast in ER, a young, fresh take on the medical drama genre that made an instant star of Wyle for his role as the young, passionate humanitarian intern, Carter. Wyle stayed with the show for 11 seasons, longer than anyone else in the original ensemble, and earned more than half a dozen Emmy Award nominations while taking on additional film and TV projects between shooting seasons. In 1997, he appeared in limited theaters in the indie family drama The Myth of Fingerprints (1997) alongside Roy Scheider and Blythe Danner, while in 1999, his wholesome bookishness made him an excellent casting choice to play Apple computer guru Steve Jobs in the cable picture, The Pirates of Silicon Valley (TNT, 1999), which was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Made for Television Movie. In 2000, Wyle and fellow ER staffer George Clooney (along with revered stage vets Brian Dennehy and Richard Dreyfus) starred in Fail Safe (CBS, 2000), a televised play based on the Cold War military drama novel by Eugene Burdick. He had a small role as the science teacher of a teenager haunted by post-apocalyptic visions (Jake Gyllenhaal) in the surreal indie Donnie Darko (2001), and in a rare villainous role, played a dishonest police officer in the thriller Enough (2002), starring Jennifer Lopez.

Big screen success eluded Wyle, but he remained a television draw as the star of TNT's tongue-in-cheek "The Librarian" action movie series; first playing the brainy keeper of a secret stash of magical items in The Librarian: Quest for the Spear (2004). Following his departure from "ER" in 2005, Wyle headlined the low budget drama The Californians, but found a much wider audience when he reprised his "Librarian" role and headed off to Africa in the sequel Return to King Solomon's Mines (2006). He earned a second round of best actor nominations from the Saturn Awards for the film series before appearing in Oliver Stone's W. (2008), a fictionalized biopic of the 43rd President of the United States that cast Wyle as U.S. Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans. In another Washington-set drama, he portrayed a lawyer charged with defending a newspaper editor (Angela Bassett) who refuses to reveal the source of a story that "outs" a CIA operative in Nothing But the Truth (2008) inspired by the notorious Valerie Plame case. The film was well reviewed but only received limited release.

With The Librarian: The Curse of the Jade Chalice (TNT, 2008), Wyle's historian was off to New Orleans in search of vampires, however his profile spike the following spring came thanks to the series finale of '"ER"' and the much anticipated return of Wyle and other former stars to wrap up their characters' storylines. Wyle's role at the center of that media event was followed by a supporting role in the Cold War coming-of-age drama, An American Affair (2009).

In 2009, Wyle signed on to play the role of Tom Mason in TNT's alien invasion project Falling Skies which was co-conceived by Robert Rodat and Steven Spielberg. It premiered on June 19, 2011 in the United States.

Personal Life

Wyle dated several women, including actress Samantha Mathis. While filming The Myth of Fingerprints in 1996, he met make-up artist Tracy Warbin. After proposing to her on Valentine's Day in 1999, they married on May 6, 2000. Together, they have a son, Owen Strausser Speer Wyle (born November 9, 2002), and a daughter, Auden Wyle (born October 15, 2005). Warbin's pregnancy with Auden was announced on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Wyle bought Bo Derek's ranch in Santa Ynez Valley, California, in June 1999, for approximately $2.5 million. They listed their Los Feliz (Los Angeles) home at close to $4.4 million. The traditional-style house was designed by architect Paul Williams, was built in 1934 and has a theater, a detached guest house-office and a landscaped yard with city views, a pool, a koi pond, a patio and a fire pit.

Wyle and Warbin, his wife of almost 10 years, separated in late October 2009, according to People magazine. The couple live in separate residences, and both see their two children daily.

Source: Wikipedia, Starpulse, Yahoo Movies