Noah Wyle Biography

Noah Strausser Speer Wyle (born June 4, 1971) is an American film, television and theatre actor. He is best known for his roles as Dr. John Carter in ER and as Tom Mason in Falling Skies. He has also played Steve Jobs in the 1999 docudrama Pirates of Silicon Valley, Dr. Kenneth Monnitoff in the cult hit Donnie Darko, and Flynn Carsen in The Librarian franchise. Wyle was named one of the 50 Most Beautiful People by People magazine in 2001.

Early life

Wyle, the middle of three children, was born in Hollywood, California, the son of Marjorie (née Speer), a registered orthopedic head nurse, and Stephen Wyle, an electrical engineer and entrepreneur. His father was Jewish and his mother Episcopalian, and he was raised "fairly nondenominationally", around both faiths. Wyle's parents divorced in the late 1970s and his mother later married James C. Katz, a film restorationist with three children of his own from a previous marriage. Wyle's paternal grandparents, Edith and Frank Wyle, founded the Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum. Edith Wyle was an expressionist painter who also created The Egg and The Eye, an innovative café and shop on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile district of Los Angeles, which soon became the preferred hangout for artists, travelers and dreamers. Through Edith Wyle, his great-grandfather is Louis Persinger.

Wyle was educated at The Thacher School in Ojai, California, and graduated with the class of 1989. Wyle participated in a theater arts program at Northwestern University after his junior year of high school and appeared in high school plays, even winning an award for a play he wrote. After graduation, he studied with acting teacher Larry Moss while living in a small apartment on Hollywood Boulevard.

Career

ER

Wyle's big break came when he was given the pilot script for ER and was cast as medical student John Carter. Wyle was the only major cast member of ER to have been with the show since its inception (1994) when he left after its eleventh season (2005). His performances on the show earned him Emmy Award nominations in each of its first five seasons. As part of an ensemble he was nominated several times for the Screen Actors Guild Award, he was recognized with three Golden Globe nominations as Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television and won the 2001 TV Guide Award for Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. Wyle left the series at the end of the eleventh season, although he returned in guest appearances for a four-episode arc during the twelfth season. He stated that he left because he wanted to spend more time with his family and friends and to make room for the upcoming generation. However, in 2009, Wyle returned to ER during its fifteenth and final season for five episodes, including the series finale. According to the Guinness World Records 2005 Special 50th Anniversary Edition, Wyle became the holder of a "Highest paid TV drama actor per episode" record during the 2003"2004 tenth season, earning approximately $400,000 per episode. While on ER, Wyle's estimated salary was $9 million a year. Wyle has also appeared in the most episodes of ER, 255, four more than Laura Innes.*

Film

Wyle was first seen in the Paul Bartel film Lust in the Dust (a western exploitation/parody which starred Tab Hunter, Lainie Kazan and Divine) as an extra in the local gang running the small town of Chile' Verde.

His later parts were a mini-series and featuring in the movie Crooked Hearts (1991) in 1990. In 1993 he worked in another feature, There Goes My Baby. After appearing in several local plays in Los Angeles, he was cast in the box-office hit A Few Good Men, in which he played a Marine jeep driver who testified in court. He also appeared in the feature Swing Kids as Emil Lutz, a leader in the Hitler Youth, and in the independent movie The Myth of Fingerprints with Roy Scheider, Blythe Danner and Julianne Moore. Additionally, he starred as Lancelot opposite Sheryl Lee in the Television movie Guinevere. Recently, Wyle starred in the original film, The Librarian: Quest for the Spear with Sonya Walger and in its sequel The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines opposite Gabrielle Anwar and in the third part of the series The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice alongside Stana Katic. His other work has included a critically acclaimed turn as Steve Jobs in the Emmy nominated Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999). He has also appeared in several feature films including: White Oleander opposite Renée Zellweger, Enough opposite Jennifer Lopez, the independent feature Donnie Darko, as the President's interpreter in the 2000 live-television production of Fail Safe, and in the independent film, The Californians.

Stage

Along with his film and television career, Wyle is also Artistic Producer of The Blank Theatre Company, located in Hollywood, CA. With the company, he has appeared on stage in the 1995 production of The 24th Day with Peter Berg, The Who (as part of the company's Young Playwrights Festival), and Lobster Alice, opposite Nicholas Brendon, where he played the surrealist painter Salvador Dalí.

For his work as one of the producers of 2005 Los Angeles Production of Michael John LaChiusa's The Wild Party, he won an NAACP Theatre Award.

Falling Skies

Wyle is the lead in TNT's new sci-fi series from Steven Spielberg titled Falling Skies. Wyle plays Tom Mason, a former Boston University history professor, becomes the second-in-command of the 2nd Massachusetts Militia Regiment, a group of civilians and fighters fleeing post-apocalyptic Boston. He is also the father of three boys, one of whom is captured by the aliens, referred to as "skitters", named Ben. The two-hour premiere of Falling Skies was watched by 5.9 million viewers, making it cable television's biggest series launch of the year, with more than 2.6 million adults 18"49 and 3.2 million adults 25"54. The series was renewed on July 7, 2011, for a second season of 10 episodes scheduled to air in summer 2012.

The first season of Falling Skies tied with the FX series American Horror Story as the biggest new cable series of the year among adults 18-49.

BuddyTV ranked him #91 on its list of "TV's Sexiest Men of 2011".

Personal life

Marriage, family and residence

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 ten years, separated in late October 2009, according to People magazine. The couple live in separate residences, and both see their two children daily.

Appearances, interests, and philanthropy

In 1999, Wyle made an appearance during the beginning of Steve Jobs's Macworld Expo keynote presentation, initially pretending to be Jobs. When the audience caught on, Jobs himself appeared and began to banter with Wyle. It was a practical joke by Jobs and Wyle in light of the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley.

Wyle devotes much of his free time to the international non-profit organization Doctors of the World and to his work as a member of the Human Rights Watch Council. Wyle also serves as the voluntary artistic producer of the Blank Theatre Company in Hollywood, which stages annual young playwrights festival and whose alumni include Ed Asner, Sarah Michelle Gellar, D. B. Sweeney, James Kerwin, Amber Benson, Megan Henning, Travis Schuldt, Warren Davis, Grant Show, and Nicholas Brendon. He also recently acquired Second Stage Theater (Los Angeles) in Hollywood, where the company has mounted numerous successful productions.

Wyle was the spokesperson for The Cover the Uninsured campaign in 2004, which had as Honorary Co-Chairs former Presidents Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter. The Cover the Uninsured Week is annually held in the United States of America and focuses attention on the nearly 44 million Americans who go without health care coverage. The campaign includes several events among different communities, health and enrollment fairs, press conferences and business seminars all over the U.S. Additionally, Wyle is also a vegetarian and a supporter of animal rights, having started a farm intended as sanctuary for abused and rescued animals. Wyle has also become a spokesman for the World Wildlife Fund, dedicated to protecting and conserving wildlife for future generations.

In 2009, Wyle became a spokesperson for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), claiming that polar bears are "hanging on by a thread" and "may be extinct in our children's lifetime, due to the effects of climate change."

In 2012, Wyle supported the disability rights group ADAPT. On April 23, he was arrested during a protest in Capitol Hill to fight against Medicaid cuts for the elderly and people with disabilities.

On May 13, 2013, Wyle appeared on Kentucky Sports Radio and predicted Andrew Wiggins would attend the University of Kentucky.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1985	Lost in the Dust	Young Man	Uncredited
1990	Blind Faith	Eric	TV movie
1991	Crooked Hearts	Ask
1992	A Few Good Men	Cpl. Jeffrey Barnes
1993	Swing Kids	Emil Lutz
1994"2009	ER	Dr. John Carter	255 episodes Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series ((1996-99) Nominated"?Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor " Series, Miniseries or Television Film (1997-99) Nominated"?Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (1995-99) Nominated"?Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series (2000-01) Nominated"?Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Actor Nominated"?Viewers for Quality Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Quality Drama Series
1994	There Goes My Baby	Michael Finnegan
1994	Guinevere	Lancelot
1995	Friends	Dr. Jeffrey Rosen	2-part episode: "The One With Two Parts"
1995	The Larry Sanders Show'	Himself	Episode: "Eight"
1996	Sesame Street		Episode: "Maria in the Hospital: Part 1"
1997	The Myth of Fingerprints	Warren
1999	Can't Stop Dancing	Poe
1999	Pirates of Silicon Valley	Steve Jobs	TV movie
2000	Fail Safe	Buck
2000	Beggers and Choosers	Davis G. Green	Episode: "The Naked Truth"
2001	Scenes of the Crime	Seth
2001	Donnie Darko	Prof. Kenneth Monnitoff
2002	White Oleander	Mark Richards
2002	Enough	Robbie
2004	The Librarian: Quest for the Spear	Flynn Carsen	Television movie Nominated"?Saturn Award for Best Actor on Television
2005	The Californians	Gavin Ransom
2006	The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines	Flynn Carsen	Television movie Nominated"?Saturn Award for Best Actor on Television
2008	W.	Donald Evans
2008	Nothing But the Truth	Avril Aaronson
2008	The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice	Flynn Carsen	Television movie Nominated"?Saturn Award for Best Actor on Television
2009	An American Affair	Mike Stafford
2010	Queen of the Lot	Arron Lambert
2010	Below the Beltway	Hunter Patrick
2011"present	Falling Skies	Tom Mason	23 episodes Nominated"?Saturn Award for Best Actor on Television
2013	Snake and Mongoose	Arthur Spear
2013	The World Made Straight	Leonard