Celebrity Nooz: Noah Wyle

Noah Wyle (Actor) - ER

Updated: 9/29/20

Name: Noah Wyle

Birth Name: Noah Strausser Speer Wyle

Born: June 4, 1971 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Claim To Fame: Noah Wyle is an American actor best known for his roles as Dr. John Carter in ER, Tom Mason in Falling Skies, and Flynn Carsen in the Librarian series.

Family Life: Noah met make-up artist Tracy Warbin on the set of The Myth of Fingerprints. They married in 2000 and have a son, Owen Strausser Speer Wyle, and a daughter, Auden Wyle. Wyle and Warbin separated in 2009 and divorced in 2010. Wyle married Sara Wells in June 2014. The couple met in 2011 during a production at The Blank Theatre Company. Their daughter Frances Harper Wyle was born on June 22, 2015.

Info: Born in Hollywood, California, the son of Marjorie, a registered orthopedic head nurse, and Stephen Wyle, an electrical engineer and entrepreneur.

The middle of three children.

Noah's grandfather, Frank Wyle, founded Wyle Laboratories, and Noah's grandmother, Edith Wyle, created The Egg and The Eye, a cafe and shop in LA, and was an expressionist painter. His grandparents also co-founded the Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum.

Attended the Thacher School in Ojai, California, and graduated with the class of 1989.

Participated in a Theatre Arts program at Northwestern University after his junior year of high school and appeared in high school plays, even winning an award for a play he wrote. After graduation, he studied with acting teacher Larry Moss.

Collects baseball cards, antiques and any bric-a-brac pertaining to the Biblical Noah's Ark.

Wyle is also Artistic Producer of The Blank Theatre Company located in Hollywood, California. With the company, he has appeared on stage in the 1995 production of The 24th Day with Peter Berg, The Why (as part of the company's Young Playwrights Festival), and Lobster Alice, opposite Nicholas Brendon, where he played the surrealist painter Salvador Dalí.

For his work as one of the producers of 2005 Los Angeles Production of Michael John LaChiusa's The Wild Party, he won an NAACP Theatre Award.

Wyle devotes much of his free time to the international non-profit organization Doctors of the World and to his work as a member of the Human Rights Watch Council. He was the spokesperson for The Cover the Uninsured campaign in 2004, which had as Honorary Co-Chairs former Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Additionally, Wyle is a supporter of animal rights and a spokesman for the World Wildlife Fund, dedicated to protecting and conserving wildlife for future generations. In 2012, Wyle supported the disability rights group ADAPT. He was arrested during a protest on Capitol Hill to fight against Medicaid cuts for the elderly and people with disabilities.

Trivia: Skipped school at 14 to audition for Milos Forman's Valmont (1989).

After appearing in several local plays in Los Angeles, he was cast in the box-office hit A Few Good Men.

Wyle's big break came with ER when he was cast as medical student John Carter. He was the only major cast member to have been with the show since its inception in 1994, and left after its eleventh season (2005); he returned in guest appearances for a four-episode arc during the twelfth season. He stated that he left because he wanted to spend more time with his family and friends and to make room for the upcoming generation. However, in 2009, Wyle returned to ER during its fifteenth and final season for five episodes, including the series finale.

According to the Guinness World Records 2005 Special 50th Anniversary Edition, Wyle became the holder of a "Highest paid TV drama actor per episode" record during the 2003-2004 tenth season, earning approximately $400,000 per episode. While on ER, Wyle's estimated salary was $9 million a year. Wyle has also appeared in the most episodes of ER, 254, four more than Laura Innes.

He was nominated five times for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and three times for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Series, Miniseries or Television Film.

His least favorite scene on ER (1994) was mouth-to-mouth resuscitation of a dog; his all-time favorite was where he stood in a dark room reading to legendary actor and acting coach Sanford Meisner.

His other work has included a critically acclaimed turn as Steve Jobs in the Emmy-nominated Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999). Steve Jobs was so impressed with the performance that he invited Wyle to step on stage as him at the opening of his annual speech at the Apple convention.

In 1999, he purchased Bo Derek's ranch in Santa Ynez Valley, California.

Has two tattoos; an "O" on his left wrist, referencing his son, Owen. And above it, his daughter's name, Auden.

Where Are They Now: In 2020, Wyle was nominated for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Limited Series or Movie Made for Television for his leading role in The Red Line. Earlier this year, Wyle confirmed that he will be joining the reboot series Leverage reuniting with John Rogers and Dean Devlin who worked with him on The Librarians. He will also be directing two of the 13 episodes. And he's currently in pre-production on the drama A Dolphin in Our Lake.

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