Chris Noth

Christopher David "Chris" Noth (born November 13, 1954) is an American actor. He is known for television roles as Det. Mike Logan on the police procedural and legal drama television series, Law & Order and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and as Mr. Big on Sex and the City. For the latter role, he has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award. As of 2015, he is a star of the CBS drama series The Good Wife, for which he was also nominated for a Golden Globe. Early life Noth was born in Madison, Wisconsin, the youngest of three sons of Jeanne L. Parr, a former CBS news reporter, and Charles James Noth, an attorney and insurance salesman. He has German and Irish ancestry. Noth's father died in 1966. During his childhood, Noth traveled with his mother and brothers throughout the United Kingdom, Spain and Czechoslovakia. Noth spent a part of his undergraduate years at Marlboro College where he built himself a log cabin. He earned an MFA from Yale School of Drama, where he acted in some 25 plays and was a pupil of acting coach Sanford Meisner. Career Noth played small parts in films, including Smithereens (1982) and Baby Boom (1987) before his first starring role in the low-budget 1988 film Peluru dan Wanita (Bullets & Women) in Indonesia. Noth joined the cast of Hill Street Blues in the sixth season in 1986, where he was billed as "Christopher Noth." He also appeared in Another World. He filmed a pilot for the legal/police drama series Law & Order in 1988. In 1990 NBC began airing the show, which slowly gained recognition from critics and fans. Noth was fired from the show in 1995. Personality differences between Noth and L&O creator/executive producer Dick Wolf settled down long enough to film a TV movie, Exiled: A Law & Order Movie (1998). In 1998 Noth returned to prime-time television when he took the role of Carrie Bradshaw's enigmatic on-again, off-again boyfriend "Big" on HBO's Sex and the City. He played the role for six years, during which he also appeared in a small role as Helen Hunt's husband in the hit film Cast Away (2000), and starred in a Broadway revival of The Best Man. In 2001 he played an FBI agent on a three-episode arc of Crossing Jordan, re-uniting him with Law & Order co-star, Jill Hennessy. Noth returned to the role of Mike Logan on Law & Order: Criminal Intent in 2005, joining the show in its fifth season following a guest appearance on a fourth-season episode. On this spin-off of the original Law & Order, Noth's detective team alternated episodes with Vincent D'Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe's characters. On June 26, 2008, it was announced that Noth was leaving the series, and that Jeff Goldblum would be joining the cast. Noth reprised the role of Big for the Sex and the City film, released on May 30, 2008. and its 2010 sequel. Noth stars with Julianna Margulies in the CBS series The Good Wife, which debuted on September 22, 2009. Also in 2009, Noth became the spokesperson for the North American market for the Biotherm line of male skin-care products. Noth starred in a revival of Gore Vidal's 1960 Broadway play The Best Man in 2000, and also starred in a Broadway revival of the 1972 play That Championship Season in 2011, playing Phil Romano, a role originated by his one-time Law & Order co-star Paul Sorvino. Starting in 2013 he is appearing in a theater festival in Napa Valley, California, called Plaza Del Sol with other performers including Dennis Haysbert. Personal life Noth is co-owner of The Cutting Room, a music venue in New York City that opened in late 1999, with Steve Walter, a former student at Berklee College of Music. Noth met his wife, Tara Lynn Wilson, while she was working at The Cutting Room; they married on April 6, 2012. Their son, Orion Christopher Noth, was born in January 2008.