Jesse Metcalfe Facts: Celebrities Who Started on Soaps

Jesse Metcalfe is a film and television actor who has been in everything from the teen comedy John Tucker Must Die to the ABC drama Desperate Housewives. He also started on a soap.

Metcalfe has also starred in Hallmark films, as well as appeared on the television shows Dallas and Chesapeake Shores. From where he was born and raised to his near-death experience, here are five fast facts about the actor.

Who Is Jesse Metcalfe?

Metcalfe was born on December 9 in Carmel Valley Village, California. He grew up in Waterford, Connecticut and was initially more interested in basketball than acting. He attended The Williams School and then went to NYU for a bit, before dropping out to pursue acting full-time.

Soap Beginnings
The reason he dropped out was that Metcalfe won the role of Miguel Lopez-Fitzgerald on the new soap Passions. The show debuted on NBC on July 5, 1999. However, it was announced in March 2004 that he was leaving the show, and his last episode aired in July of 2004.

Near-Death Experience
Metcalfe came very close to death back in November of 2008 when he was hosting the World Music Awards in Monaco. As the story goes, he was having fun at the after-party when he accidentally fell 30 feet off of a second-story balcony. While this fall could’ve been fatal, Metcalfe only walked away with a fractured fibula.

SAG Winner

Following his role on Passions, Metcalfe was cast as John Rowland on Desperate Housewives, Eva Longoria’s character’s gardener. Metcalfe and the rest of the cast won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series in 2005.

Getting Personal With Jesse Metcalfe
Metcalfe previously dated Nadine Coyle, who is a member of the British girl band Girls Aloud, from 2005 to 2008. He then began dating Cara Santana in 2009 and the couple got engaged in August 2016.