Celebrity Birthday of the Day – May 15

Even though he had been acting for over a decade, the first time I remember seeing Grant Heslov was as Faisal in James Cameron’s True Lies. Heslov had already played many TV roles on shows like The Facts of Life, Matlock, The Twilight Zone, thirtysomething, and Murder, She Wrote by this point, but True Lies brought him into the public eye, and he quickly became something of a Hollywood “That Guy”, appearing in such films as Dante’s Peak, The Birdcage, Enemy of the State, Congo, Black Sheep, and The Scorpion King. He also acted on TV series including Seinfeld, Columbo, Touched by and Angel, The Outer Limits, CSI, and The X-Files. Unbeknownst to me, starting in 2003 he began a secondary career as a producer, and produced the Coen Bros. film Intolerable Cruelty, as well as many Oscar-noteworthy films such as Good Night, and Good Luck, and, more recently, Argo. Imagine my surprise on Oscar night when the funny secondary agent from True Lies got on stage to accept an Academy Award with Ben Affleck! Grant Heslov turns 50 today.