Josh Holloway

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Josh Holloway

Joshua Lee "Josh" Holloway (born July 20, 1969) is an American actor and model from Free Home, Georgia. He is best known for his role as James "Sawyer" Ford on the American television show Lost.Holloway was born in San Jose, California, the second of four boys. His family moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia when he was two. In addition to his immediate family, Holloway has a large extended family that includes Baptist preacher Dr. Dale Holloway and author and World War II prisoner-of-war Carl Holloway. He is also the great-grandson of "Lula" Holloway, who wrote a book sometime in the 20th century about the Holloway family. Holloway grew up in the small North Georgia town of Free Home and attended Cherokee High School in Canton, Georgia. He developed an interest in movies at a very young age. He studied at the University of Georgia for a year, but left to pursue a career as a model.Holloway's ambition for acting led him to Los Angeles, where he landed a role in the comedy Doctor Benny. He followed up with lead roles in the movies Mi Amigo, Moving August, and Cold Heart.

Following these roles, he gained recognition for his lead role in the Sci-Fi Channel movie Sabretooth with David Keith and John Rhys-Davies. He also made appearances in Good Girls Don't episode, "Addicted to love"; NCIS episode, "My other left foot"; The Lyon's Den episode, "Separation Anxiety"; Walker, Texas Ranger episode, "Medieval Crimes"; CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, episode "Assume Nothing"; and Angel episode, "City of." Holloway appeared in the Aerosmith video for the song "Cryin'" as a thief who tries to steal Alicia Silverstone's purse from a diner. In the video, she catches him and beats him up. Holloway also appears in English songwriter/singer Billie Myers's 1998 music video "Tell Me." He is seen as a patron sitting at the bar in a burlesque club and then as Myers's playboy in a S&M fantasy. Holloway is best known for his role as James "Sawyer" Ford in the hit television series Lost. The show propelled Holloway to celebrity status, but left him with little time to leverage his fame with other roles. According to USA Today, he took himself out of consideration for a role in a Brad Pitt Western due to the demands of his filming schedule. Nevertheless, he found time to star in the thriller Whisper and he also ventured into the world of video games in Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars.

In the game, he plays the role of a Brotherhood of Nod intelligence officer named Ajay whose primary role is to assist players by supplying information that is crucial to upcoming battles. In May 2007, 20th Century Fox approached Holloway for the second time and offered him the role of Gambit in X-Men 4. He had been the main contender for the same role in 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand but took himself out of the running due to his busy schedule on Lost. Shortly thereafter, producers scrapped plans to feature the character of Gambit in the third X-Men film. In 2005, People Magazine named Holloway one of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World." In January 2006, In Touch Weekly named Holloway the "hottest hunk" on television. In the same month, Holloway was voted the seventeenth sexiest guy worldwide by British readers of OK! magazine. In the same year, he was voted the second Sexiest Star in Hollywood by US Weekly. Also, in March 2007 Holloway was selected as the new face for Davidoff's "Cool Water" fragrance worldwide. In Spring 2008, Holloway was selected as the first male spokesperson for Magnum Ice Cream of Turkey.

Previous Magnum spokespersons include Eva Longoria and Elizabeth Hurley. In the same year he made the top ten list of TV Guide's Sexiest Stars. In mid-2008, Holloway joined the cast of Stay Cool, a comedy by the Polish Brothers. He co-stars with Winona Ryder, Chevy Chase, Julie Ovens, Mark Polish, Jon Cryer and Hilary Duff. Artist Salvador Larocca is believed by Comic Book Resources columnist Timothy Callahan to have used Holloway as the model for his rendition of Tony Stark during his run on Iron Man, which began in 2008. In June 2010, Holloway won a Saturn Award for "Best Actor on Television" for his role on Lost. In September 2010, Holloway was added to the cast of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. At the end of shooting the Lost pilot in Oahu, Hawaii, Holloway proposed to his long time girlfriend, Yessica Kumala, a native of Indonesia. The couple married on October 1, 2004. On April 9, 2009, Holloway and Kumala welcomed their first child, daughter Java Kumala Holloway. Holloway's interests include boating, sailing, snowboarding, martial arts, motocross, fly fishing, and the guitar. On a Channel 4 trailer that aired in the UK, he stated "I do enjoy my beer," and opined that the greatest invention of all time was "distilled alcohol," while his Lost colleagues selected "pen and paper," "the wheel," and "the guitar."