Patrick Dempsey
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Patrick Dempsey (born January 13, 1966 in Lewiston, Maine) is an Irish-American actor who achieved Hollywood fame during the late 1980s.
Early life and education
Patrick Dempsey grew up in Buckfield, Maine, and graduated from St. Dominic Regional High School. He was also an adept juggler, tying for second in a National Juggling Competition.
Acting debut
In 1985, he debuted as an actor in the movie Heaven Help Us. In 1987, he participated in Meatballs 3, where he played a janitor, Rudy, which gave him some fame. Soon thereafter, he married actress Rocky Parker, twenty-seven years his senior; she already had a son, who was a year older than Dempsey.
In another 1987 release, Can't Buy Me Love, he achieved major movie star status. The movie, in which he played Ronald Miller, was a "geek-to-popular" type of comedy which launched him and co-star Amanda Peterson to teen idol status, and Dempsey and Peterson appeared constantly on the covers of such teen magazines as Teen Beat, Tiger Beat, Bop and others. For his role in Can't Buy Me Love he won a Young Artist Award. In 1989, he shared credits with Kate Jackson and Kirstie Alley in Loverboy, where he played a pizza delivery boy. He also starred in 1987's In the Mood. A movie based in 1944. Dempsey played Ellsworth "Sonny" Wisecarver, a 15 year old boy who was arrested for marrying an older woman.
Just like in Peterson's case, Dempsey's time in the limelight was short-lived. He made several movies during the 1990s, of which most were box office bombs, straight to video releases or television movies. There were a few notable exceptions, however, such as 1991's Mobsters, where he played Meyer Lansky, 1993's , where he played John F. Kennedy, 1994's With Honors, and 1995's Outbreak, alongside Dustin Hoffman.
In 2000, he acted in another significant box office hit, Scream 3, alongside Neve Campbell and in 2002, he was in Sweet Home Alabama, with Reese Witherspoon. In 2004, he starred in the HBO TV movie, Iron Jawed Angels, about the women's suffrage movement, with Anjelica Huston and Hilary Swank. Dempsey was also charming in the 2003 movie Lucky Seven, where he co-starred with Kimberly Williams-Paisley. Overall, Dempsey has participated in more than forty movies.
In 2005 Dempsey experienced a career revival when he was cast in the role of Dr. Derek "McDreamy" Shepherd on the hit ABC medical drama, Grey's Anatomy. Much of the show's sexual tension revolves around the relationship between Shepherd and Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), a surgical intern he met in a bar the night before she started her internship at the same hospital where he is an attending physician and head of neurology. The first season ended with Shepherd's estranged wife, Addison (Kate Walsh) showing up in Seattle - while season two saw her become a staff member - creating one of the most heated love triangles on primetime TV in recent memory.
Personal life
Dempsey has been married twice. From 1987 to 1994 he was married to actress Rocky Parker. He remarried on July 31, 1999, to makeup artist and creator of Delux Beauty, Jillian Fink Dempsey. The couple has one child, a daughter named Tallulah Fyfe, born in January 2002.
Trivia
Dempsey's hobbies include antique collecting, home remodeling, and skiing. He has also raced in the Panoz GT Pro Racing Series.In 2005, Dempsey was named by People Magazine as one of the Sexiest Men Alive. In 2006, Dempsey admitted he has dyslexia. [link]
At age 15 in 1981, Dempsey tied for 2nd place in the [The International Jugglers' Association (IJA)] Juggling Championship, losing to 8-year-old Anthony Gatto
External links
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