Actor Steve Valentine, known for his role as Dr. Nigel Townsend on NBC’s hit show Crossing Jordan, looks forward to a potential story line in the coming season. There is talk that some of his scenes will be set out of the morgue and in his character’s home. He plays a forensic doctor, whom he calls “a bit of a nut, serious at times, sometimes cranky” who has at least one thing in common with Steve – he is a fan of everything feline. In the fall the good doctor’s home will boast bountiful cats. Although off screen Steve has only two cats, Sydney and Troughton, he is hoping that at least one can make a big screen debut. They’d be perfect, “as they are little Hollywood brats,” laughs Steve.
Troughton and Sydney were named after characters that Steve played in the London theater – Sydney Bruhl from Death Trap and Troughton, from Run for your Wife. He and his wife Sherry rescued them from Manhattan Beach where they had been abandoned. The cats have their alliances. Sydney is his cat, whereas Troughton is a mama’s boy and gravitates toward Sherry. “Troughton sleeps in her arms every night and hugs her like a koala on a tree. He doesn’t move an inch. We call it the glove of love.”
The cats get plenty of exercise going in and out of the house, and love best to play with a feather on the end of a stick they nicknamed “Fred”. “Every time we knock on the cupboard and call ‘Fred’, they go crazy,” says Steve. “People say cats don’t give a damn about you. But mine, they play fetch and come when we call their names with their tails wagging in the air. They are more like dogs than cats.”
For a show set in a morgue, “we have more fun than we should,” says Steve. “It is funny to be dealing with the dead bodies because we have real people coming in to play those roles. They apply makeup to their chests so they look like they’ve been cut open. We do a scene with them and they then get up off the table. Afterwards, we have lunch together.” Steve proudly recalls an off-camera episode where the cast and crew rallied together to help some animals in need. “I was doing a scene with Jill [Hennessy] and with every silence in the dialogue we could hear a “meow” in the background, and they had to stop the filming. We had seen this wild cat hanging around the set a lot and assumed it was her. We finally found her near an air conditioning unit – with eight babies. We found a home for every one of them. The mother too.”
Not always a ‘cat person’, Steve grew up with a dog and a bird in the South End of London. “We had a little parakeet. It was my dad’s favorite pet. Because my dad smoked a lot the bird would get high on my dad’s breath. He would literally hold the bird up to his mouth and talk to him and the bird would just go into ecstasy for hours. And the bird would talk back to my dad in his voice. The sad, weird thing is that my dad died at about 60 years old and the bird lived another five years and would continue to speak in his voice. It was strange having your late father’s voice talking to you at night.”
From elementary school, Steve has been concerned about animal welfare. Then, he convinced classmates to bring in objects that he would throw in a bag and charge them a pound to pull them out. The money went to the Wildlife Fund. Today, he is involved with the Genesis Awards, as well as doing his part at home with his two rescue kitties, Sydney and Troughton.
Actor Steve Valentine, known for his role as Dr. Nigel Townsend on NBC’s acclaimed Crossing Jordan, looks forward to a potential story line in the coming season. There is talk that some of his scenes will be set out of the morgue and in his character’s home. He plays a forensic doctor, whom he calls “a bit of a nut, serious at times, sometimes cranky” who has at least one thing in common with Steve – he is a fan of everything feline. In the fall the good doctor’s home will boast bountiful cats. Although off screen Steve has only two cats, Sydney and Troughton, he is hoping that at least one can make a big screen debut. They’d be perfect, he says, as “they are little Hollywood brats,” laughs Steve.
Troughton and Sydney were named after characters that Steve played in London theater – Sydney Bruhl from Death Trap and Troughton, from Run for your Wife. He and his wife Sherry rescued them from Manhattan Beach where they had been abandoned. The cats have their alliances. Sydney is his cat, whereas Troughton is a mama’s boy and gravitates toward Sherry. “Troughton sleeps in her arms every night and hugs her like a koala on a tree. He doesn’t move an inch. We call it the glove of love.”
The cats get plenty of exercise going in and out of the house, and love best to play with a feather on the end of a stick they nicknamed “Fred”. “Every time we knock on the cupboard and call ‘Fred’, they go crazy,” says Steve. “People say cats don’t give a damn about you. But mine, they play fetch and come when we call their names with their tails wagging in the air. They are more like dogs than cats.”
For a show set in a morgue, “we have more fun than we should,” says Steve. “It is funny to be dealing with the dead bodies because we have real people coming in to play those roles. They apply makeup to their chests so they look like they’ve been cut open. We do a scene with them and they then get up off the table. Afterwards, we have lunch together.” Steve proudly recalls an off-camera episode where the cast and crew rallied together to help some animals in need. “I was doing a scene with Jill [Hennessy] and with every silence in the dialogue we could hear a “Meow” in the background, and they had to stop the filming. We had seen this wild cat hanging around the set a lot and assumed it was her. We finally found her near an air conditioning unit – with 8 babies. We found a home for every one of them. The mother too.”
Not always a ‘cat person’, Steve grew up with a dog and a bird in the South End of London. “We had a little parakeet. It was my dad’s favorite pet. Because my dad smoked a lot the bird would get high on my dad’s breath. He would literally hold the bird up to his mouth and talk to him and the bird would just go in ecstasy for hours. And the bird would talk back to my dad in his voice. The sad, weird thing is that my dad died at about 60 years old and the bird lived another 5-years and would continue to speak in his voice. It was strange having your late father’s voice talking to you at night.”
From elementary school, Steve has been concerned about animal welfare. Then, he convinced classmates to bring in objects that he would throw in a bag and charge them a pound to pull them out. The money went to the Wildlife Fund. Today, he is involved with the Genesis Awards, as well as doing his part at home with his two rescue kitties, Sydney and Troughton.
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