Noah Strausser Speer Wyle (
; born June 4, 1971) is an American
film,
television and theater actor. He is
best known for his role as
Dr. John
Carter on the
TV drama
ER. He has also played
Steve Jobs in the 1999
docudrama Pirates of Silicon Valley and
Flynn Carsen in
The
Librarian franchise. Wyle was named one of the
50 Most
Beautiful People by
People
magazine in 2001.
Biography
Early life
Wyle, the
middle one 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. Noah's parents
eventually split in the late
seventies and
his mother later remarried to
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. Wyle was raised in a
Reform
Jewish home. He 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
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.Wyle’s big break came when he was
given the pilot script for
ER and was cast as medical student
(later Dr.).
John Carter. He also
appeared in the feature
Swing
Kids as 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.
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 2004-2005 season, although he returned in
guest appearances for four episodes in the next 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 for five episodes during its 15th and
final season, including the series finale.
Along with his film and TV career, Wyle has also been making some
theater moves. Among others he appeared in a Los Angeles stage
production of
The 24th Day
with
Peter Berg in 1995, and with The
Blank Theatre Company, he did
the play
The Who, and more recently he did
Lobster
Alice, with
Nicholas Brendon,
where he played surrealist painter
Salvador Dalí. For his work as one of the
producers of
The Wild Party at the Blank Theare, he won an
NAACP
Theatre Award. He's also produced "Missouri Waltz" at the
theatre. In the year 2000 Wyle was also featured in the U.S.
Got Milk? advertising campaign.
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 2003/04 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, 4 more
than Laura Innes.
Noah Wyle is locked in as the lead in TNT's new sci-fi series from
Steven Spielberg. Wyle will play the leader of a group of soldiers
and civilians that battle against an alien force, according to the
network. The pilot opens shortly after the aliens have decimated
the human population, and Wyle's group sets out to find
survivors.
Family
Wyle has dated several women including actresses,
Samantha Mathis and
Friends star
Courteney
Cox. 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 daughter
Auden Wyle (born October 15, 2005). Tracy'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.
Personal interests
In 1999, Wyle made an appearance during the beginning of
Steve Jobs'
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 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, Noah 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."
Filmography
References
- Noah Wyle Biography (1971-)
- Noah Wyle Biography - Yahoo! Movies
- JewishJournal.com
- IMDB:ER
External links
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Misc
Search