Patrick Dempsey (born January 13, 1966 in Lewiston, Maine) is an Irish-American actor who achieved Hollywood fame during the late 1980s.

Life and education

Patrick Dempsey grew up in Buckfield, Maine, and graduated from St. Dominic Regional High School. He was also an adept juggler, placing third in a National Juggling Competition.

Acting debut

In 1985, he debuted as an actor in the movie Heaven Help Us. In 1987, he participated in Meatballs 3, where he played a janitor, Rudy, which gave him some fame. Soon thereafter, he married actress Rocky Parker, twenty-seven years his senior; she already had a son, who was a year older than Dempsey.

In another 1987 release, Can't Buy Me Love, he achieved major movie star status. The movie, in which he played Ronald Miller, was a "geek-to-popular" type of comedy which launched him and co-star Amanda Peterson to teen idol status, and Dempsey and Peterson appeared constantly on the covers of such teen magazines as Teen Beat, Tiger Beat, Bop and others. For his role in Can't Buy Me Love he won a Young Artist Award. In 1989, he shared credits with Kate Jackson and Kirstie Alley in Loverboy, where he played a pizza delivery boy.

Just like in Peterson's case, Dempsey's time in the limelight was short-lived. He made several movies during the 1990s, of which most were box office bombs, straight to video releases or television movies. There were a few notable exceptions, however, such as 1991's Mobsters, where he played Meyer Lansky, 1993's JFK: Reckless Youth, where he played John F. Kennedy, 1994's With Honors, and 1995's Outbreak, alongside Dustin Hoffman.

In 2000, he acted in another significant box office hit, Scream 3, alongside Neve Campbell and in 2002, he was in Sweet Home Alabama, with Reese Witherspoon. In 2004, he starred in the HBO TV movie, Iron Jawed Angels, about the women's suffrage movement, with Anjelica Huston and Hilary Swank. Dempsey was also charming in the 2003 movie Lucky Seven, where he co-starred with Kimberley Williams. Overall, Dempsey has participated in more than forty movies.

Dempsey currently stars on the hit ABC medical drama, Grey's Anatomy.