Celebrity Sightings – November 2016

 Two powerhouse men steal the spotlight for this month’s Celebrity Sightings.
Leading our star sightings for November is famed television actor Christopher Meloni, spotted by local resident Peg Catrini.  With his piercing, blue-eyed glint, brawny looks, cocky tough guy stance and effortless charisma, this Law and Order SVU star has grabbed audiences’ attention, male and female alike, finding breakthrough small screen stardom by playing both sides of the law.  Audiences first were taken in by his arresting portrayal of a sociopathic killer in the gripping prison drama Oz (1997) on cable TV. Although his small screen roots were in 90s situation comedy, the network powers-that-be wisely discovered his power and allure as a dramatic star and quickly handed him his own prime-time crime series, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999), as a not-quite-by-the-book crime detective.  This one-two punch of TV shows put Meloni, who seems to grow sexier with age, on the map and well on top, where he remains today.
Peg Catrini isn’t just rubbing shoulders with TV’s sexiest male stars, however; Peg’s brush with silver screen fame recently brought her side-by-side with actor and entertainment idol Tom Cruise.  In 1976, if you had told 14-year-old Franciscan seminary student Thomas Cruise Mapother IV that one day in the not too distant future he would be considered one of the top 100 movie stars of all time, he would have probably grinned and told you that his ambition was to become a priest.  Nonetheless, this sensitive, deeply religious youngster who was born in 1962 in Syracuse, New York, was destined to become Tom Cruise, one of the highest paid and most sought after actors in screen history.  The only son among four children of nomadic parents, young Tom spent his boyhood eternally on the move, and by the time he was 14 years old, he had attended 15 different schools in the US and Canada.  He finally settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, with his mother and her new husband.  While in high school, he developed an interest in acting and abandoned his plans of becoming a priest, dropped out of school, and at age 18, he headed for New York and a possible acting career.  The next 15 years of his life are the stuff of legends – from Top Gun (1986) to Rain Man (1988), and Mission: Impossible (1996) to Jerry Maguire (1996).
Keep up the good hunt Santa Clarita.  Stay tuned for more celebrity sightings, as there are many more to report!  You never know which star you may run into.  And don’t be shy – snap a photo with your favorite celebrity and be sure to share your brush with fame with us.
Email your submissions to contest@santaclaritamagazine.com!