Eric Close
Tracing His Roots
He has that clean-cut, wholesome look about him, the proverbial "boyish good looks." He is punctual for a recent interview and unfailingly polite. And while he speaks earnestly, he also has a mischievous side, especially when he recalls "toilet papering people's yards" and "hucking oranges at cars" while growing up in El Cajon. "That's all I'm going to admit," he says with a laugh. One of the stars of the hit CBS drama, Without a Trace, Eric Close left home for Hollywood years ago, but there's still much of the San Diego boy about him.

The 39-year-old Close recalls being raised in a sometimes-rowdy family — he's the oldest of three brothers — after his mother and father, an orthopedic surgeon, moved from Michigan to start a practice. "I loved it," he says of his childhood. "One of the things I remember was the freedom we had as kids to get on our bikes and ride out all day long. We would ride out to Jamul or out by Singing Hills. It's funny now 'cause we'll go out there to play golf on some of the courses that didn't exist at the time and there are homes everywhere, and we think, that was Rattlesnake Hill? And so those are fond memories of being a kid, the freedom of being able to just go. It seems today my kids go out in the front yard and I'm watching them constantly. Unfortunately, a different time."

It's a time reflected in Without a Trace, the television series based on the FBI's Missing Persons Squad in New York. Close plays the driven agent Martin Fitzgerald, who, with the rest of the squad headed up by Jack Malone (Anthony LaPaglia), tracks down people who've vanished. The show, which airs Sunday nights on CBS, has been broadcast since 2002, nearly a lifetime in the high stakes world of network television. Close thinks the show has been successful because it's about hope. "In most crime dramas, the person's already dead," he says. "So you're just trying to find out who committed the crime. In our case, often it's a person who's missing and we hope to find them alive." It's a scenario played out in real life. Close recalls coming upon a full-page ad recently in USA Today for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "They probably had 50 pictures of kids that are missing and it was just shocking to me," he says. "It pulls on your heartstrings...I looked at every one hoping that I'd see one and say, 'I know that kid. I know where that kid is.' I think our audience feels the same."

Close's first role was "the baddie," as he calls it, in a junior high school play about the prodigal son. "I remember people saying, 'You're pretty good at this.' But then typical adolescence stuff started happening and I was more interested in just being a kid and getting into trouble," Close says with a laugh. So even though the bug was planted early, he does not regret putting acting on hold. "It gave me my life and I think it's very important as an actor to draw from your life experiences."

Close didn't act again until years later when he was about to graduate from the University of Southern California with a communications degree. "I met a friend of mine who was going into filmmaking and the more we talked about it, the more I realized I had a real passion for storytelling and movies and I had enjoyed acting, so I thought, well, I'm going to give it a go." Close remembers calling his mom from his fraternity house to break the news. "I may even have been crying, I don't know — I remember I was sort of troubled, 'what am I going to do when I graduate from college?' My mom said, 'You know, your dad and I will support you whatever you do. We'll encourage you...just follow your dream.' So I thought that was pretty cool."

That dream led to several films, guest appearances on TV shows, and leading roles in series such as Now and Again, The Magnificent Seven, Dark Skies, and McKenna. Close also starred in Taken, a ten-part mini-series executive produced by Steven Spielberg, which was nominated for a Golden Globe. Even though he's played an FBI agent for the past five years on Without a Trace, Close says it's not difficult to get in and out of character. Does his wife ever call him Martin? "No, I pretty much go to work myself, play my character and then come home myself," Close says. But he admits Martin's addiction last season to painkillers did take an emotional toll. "I think after a full season — nine-and-a-half months — of playing that person who was struggling with the drugs, it wore on me." In real life, the only "addiction" he shares with Martin Fitzgerald, is chocolate.

Close and his wife, Keri, have two daughters, Katie and Ella, and seem to live very average lives — from backyard barbecues to bedtime stories — in a town where the tinsel is often tarnished and the troubled lives of Britney and Paris grab the headlines. In fact, what's impressive about Close is that he's so normal in a profession not always known for that. Close credits the solid family life he led in San Diego for his sense of rooted-ness. "My brothers and I comment quite often about how fortunate we are to have the family we have today and the relationship we have with each other. To my parents' credit, they did the best they could and it turned out well."

Close's mother, Eva, apparently knew her son would end up in acting long before he did. A few years ago Close returned to Valhalla High School for his 20-year reunion. A former classmate told him for the first time what his mom had confided years before: "I think Eric is trying to find some direction and I think he'd be a great actor. See if you can talk him into coming in and maybe doing some plays at the high school." Close never acted in high school. But, in the end, his mom was right. — Andrea Naversen