A capable small-screen player who got her start with a four-year, Daytime Emmy-winning stint on
Guiding Light, Watros tested the prime-time waters with a handful of TV guest appearances before signing on to the sitcom
Titus in 2000 as the title character's girlfriend. Due to a salary dispute, she almost didn't get the part but refused to sell herself short, perhaps because she had grown up poor and had survived a crippling blood disease to boot. After
Titus folded in 2002, the leggy blonde landed a role on
The Drew Carey Show as the rotund comic's old high-school pal. Her biggest success came when she joined the cast of
Lost as a mysterious plane-wrecked psychologist during the show's second season.
Cynthia Watros Fast Facts:- Raised in a trailer park in Lake Orion, MI, following her parents' divorce; both her father and brother are electrical engineers.
- As a teenager, survived a three-year bout with immune thrombocytopenia purpura, a life-threatening blood disease.
- Was one of two opening-night understudies for the 1993-94 off-Broadway production of John Patrick Shanley's Four Dogs and a Bone; Debra Messing was the other.
- Clashed onscreen (and reportedly off as well) with Guiding Light costar Kim Zimmer.
- Won a Daytime Emmy (Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series) in 1998 for her role on Guiding Light.
- Cynthia Watros Relationships:
- Bruce Watros - Father
- Curtis Gilliland - Husband
- Emma Rose Marie Gilliland - Daughter
- Nancy Salvador - Mother
- Sadie Anne Marie Gilliland - Daughter
- Steven Watros - Brother
- College:
- Attended Macomb Community College, Macomb, MI; Boston University, Boston, MA (BFA)
