Chris Meloni

Born: April 2, 1961 in Washington, D.C.
Status: Married to Sherman Williams (yes, it's a woman) for five years
Quote: "I'm a nudist at heart."
Fun Fact: He's wild about Asian-influenced decor and spiritualism.

With an appearance on the cover of Out magazine and several televised male tongue-wrestling matches on "Oz," Chris Meloni has become the macho heartthrob of the moment. Although he's happily married, he has gallantly displayed his well-built body and growling demeanor to lustlorn fans of six-foot hunks with a soft spot for fashion shows everywhere. His wildly popular personal Web page has turned into a sort of gay fan site, with Meloni occasionally popping in to reassure devotees that he's all for same-sex marriage and that he's glad to be "a favorite of the gays."

Meloni fled his conservative Virginia upbringing (he had developed a taste for AC/DC and motorcycles) for the more psychedelic University of Colorado life. Encouraged by his theater class professor, he dropped out and hit the road for Hollywood with only chutzpah and long brown locks on his resume. After kicking around in bit parts as a B-class thug, he finally got his big break playing "slow-witted stud" Frankie Fanelli on the mercifully short-lived "Fanelli Boys" sitcom in 1990. Fortunately this got him noticed, leading to parts in Terry Gilliam's "Twelve Monkeys" and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." He showed off an unrestrained sense of goofiness in the otherwise irredeemable "Wet Hot American Summer" in 2001 as a very sexually confused veteran and cook.

Things started heating up for his TV career as well, with appearances on "Homicide," "NYPD Blue," and a starring role on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" transforming him from anonymous goon to professional police detective. But just as he was in danger of being typecast as the brooding blue pig who always gets the blond, along came "Oz."

As felon Chris Keller in the hit prison drama, Chris definitely took a step off the diving board into the deep end of stereotypical gay fantasy, combining hard muscle and unpredictable brutality with budding homosexual passion. Repeatedly sodomized fellow inmate Beecher, played by Lee Tergeson, served as the conduit for all this wish fulfillment, getting to play Tina to Keller's Ike and receiving several broken bones for it. Still, it must have been worth it when Keller finally relented to a sloppy kiss on death row. Although "Oz" was not exclusively a graphic gay soap opera, it certainly brought to the fore several of the quandaries those who lust for rough trade face every day. And beefcake shots of Keller's naked body in the communal showers helped.

Now that "Oz" has wrapped up, Chris is concentrating on solidifying his presence on the silver screen, appearing in more theater productions and capitalizing on his current wave of popularity.