5 Things You Didn't Know About Michael Trucco

Michael Trucco has locked lips with the comely likes of Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff and Castle's Stana Katic. Now the 6-foot-3 40-year-old is playing Sarah Shahi's ex-husband with benefits in USA's new series Fairly Legal.
1. He suffered spinal injuries similar to Christopher Reeve's.
A December 2007 car crash resulted in three crushed vertebrae in Trucco's spine. "When I was discharged, they told me it was a total fluke that I hadn't been paralyzed from the shoulders down," he says. The residual effect: some stiffness and an 8-inch-long scar.
2. But he still rides motorcycles and races cars.
"I never want to position myself as a victim," says Trucco, who races "crap cars worth $500 or less" in an endurance series called the 24 Hours of Lemons.
3. His wife, Sandra Hess, was his costar.
"We became great friends when we were on James Brolin's Pensacola: Wings of Gold. Around our last episode, I had an epiphany at a cast dinner. I told Jim that I was going to marry her — someday. That was in 2000, and we had the perfect wedding in Mexico in 2009."
4. He's an American Idol-holic!
"It's a little embarrassing in mixed company," he says with a laugh. "But for each episode we have a very structured night when five or six friends come over to watch. I've literally seen every show."
5. He wanted to wear a badge — for real.
Trucco's dad was a cop and Trucco entered Santa Clara University as a criminal justice major. "Police work was fascinating and I didn't imagine that acting was something a kid from San Mateo, California, could really pursue," he says. Good thing the head of his school's drama department thought differently.
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