T.R. Knight

Name at birth: Theodore Raymond Knight

T.R. Knight's acting breakthrough came with the success of TV's Grey's Anatomy, a medical drama that first aired in the spring of 2005. As the well-meaning but hapless Dr. George O'Malley, Knight became a favorite with viewers and with critics, who dubbed him an actor with a bright future. Knight's career began at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the late 1990s. He moved to New York in 1998 and appeared in Broadway and off-Broadway plays through 2003, when he landed a role in the short-lived Nathan Lane sitcom Charlie Lawrence. A few more TV jobs and a couple of years later, Knight joined Patrick Dempsey, Katherine Heigl, Ellen Pompeo and Isaiah Washington as a regular on Grey's Anatomy. He was nominated for an Emmy in 2007, by which time he'd become tabloid fodder through no fault of his own, after an argument on the set between co-stars Washington and Dempsey. It was reported that Washington had used a sexual slur in referring to Knight, and in the end Washington's contract was not renewed and he left the show. Knight continued on, but his character appeared less and less in subsequent seasons and in 2009 he left the show.