Who

Noth is best known for his two quintessential New York parts: Law & Order's Mike Logan and Mr. Big on Sex and the City.

Backstory

Noth's father died when he was eight and he was raised by his mom, Jeanne Parr, a foreign correspondent for CBS who moved frequently over the years. Noth spent time living in England, Yugoslavia and Spain before heading off to Vermont's Marlboro College, where he first found his way on to the stage (and also dabbled in transcendental meditation and poetry writing). In the late '70s he moved to New York to study with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse and made his feature film debut in 1982 in Smithereens, playing a transvestite hooker. He later attended the Yale School of Drama, but his first decade in the business left him little to show for it. His first major part only came along in 1989, when Dick Wolf cast him alongside Jerry Orbach as the temperamental Detective Mike Logan on Law & Order.

Noth spent five years on the show before Wolf decided the character had run out of steam. A series of mediocre parts followed, including a role in an unsuccessful L&O-inspired movie, Exiled. Noth's career picked up considerably when Darren Star and Michael Patrick King brought him onto HBO's Sex and the City to play Mr. Big, Carrie Bradshaw's hotshot, cigar-smoking lover—a character Candace Bushnell had modeled on Ron Galotti, the former publisher of Vogue—and he spent six years on the show until its conclusion. He reprised his role as Detective Mike Logan in 2005 when he was cast in Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Recently

Wolf tapped Noth to join the cast of Criminal Intent after several highly-publicized on-set meltdowns by the show's star Vincent D'Onofrio and after the series' ratings had started to slip. The plan was to have D'Onofrio and Noth alternate each week, which would place less strain on the fragile D'Onofrio and provide a back-up plan if D'Onofrio couldn't continue to work, as well as potentially boost the show's sagging ratings. Unfortunately, Noth's return did little to bolster the ratings and Criminal Intent was shifted from NBC to USA in 2007 and Noth decided to leave the show altogether in 2008. In 2009, he began starring opposite Julianna Margulies in the CBS drama, The Good Wife.

For the record

His last name rhymes with "both."

On the side

Formerly a co-owner of the now-shuttered rock venue The Cutting Room, Noth is also an investor in Noel Ashman's faded Meatpacking District club The Plumm, along with David Wells, Damon Dash, socialite Ann Dexter-Jones, Joey McIntyre, and private eye Bo Dietl.

Personal

Noth's personal life has never strayed much from his on-camera persona: He lived the bachelor life for years, dating Winona Ryder and model Beverly Johnson, with whom he had a three-year relationship before an ugly break-up in 1995. He's currently engaged to actress Tara Wilson, whom he met when she was working at The Cutting Room. They had their first baby, a son named Orion Christopher, in January 2008. The family lives in the Village—in the same building as Vogue editor Hamish Bowles—and also owns a home in Sherman Oaks, Calif.