Josh Bowman

Joshua Bowman set tongues wagging late in the first decade of the 21st century as the young Brit heartthrob du jour, seeing as much ink for whom he dated as for his nascent career on U.K. and American television. A onetime professional rugby player, Bowman made a splash on British television in 2009 as the swoon-worthy heart patient inexorably drawn to the darling of the BBC's medical drama "Holby City" (1999- ). He drew even more buzz for a rumored Caribbean tryst with ill-fated chanteuse Amy Winehouse, beginning a run as tabloid fodder for celebrity magazines. After doing his time in some lo-fi horror outings and the experimental Norwegian-made showbiz insider indie "Exteriors" (2011), Hollywood came calling with a recurring guest role on the ABC Family series "Make It or Break It" (2009-12). Bowman popped up as a new suitor to former child star Miley Cyrus in 2011 while shooting their onscreen romance "So Undercover" (2012); his love life again made headlines in 2012 as he began a relationship with his co-star Emily VanCamp on the hit high-society intrigue series "Revenge" (ABC, 2011-15). Fast becoming a favorite for paparazzi on "PDA" watch, Bowman in short order has become the latest U.K. "It" boy export.

He was born Joshua Tobias Bowman on March 4, 1988 in Berkshire, England, U.K. Following in the footsteps of older sister Scarlett, he dabbled in dramatic endeavors while doing his secondary education at Berkshire's Wellington College, but made his name there as a rugby star. He pursued the sport as a profession, going pro briefly with the St. Albans-based Rugby Football Union club the Saracens, before a string of injuries effectively forced his retirement. A friend who worked as a talent agent convinced him to pursue a career in drama, and he journeyed to the U.S. to study drama at New York's Lee Strasberg Institute. Upon returning to the U.K., Bowman made his first television appearance in 2007 on the British version of Nickelodeon's youth-oriented fantasy sitcom "Genie in the House" (2006-09), winning a return that same year in a different role. In 2009, he landed the part of Scott James, a strapping but vulnerable firefighter sidelined by a weak heart, on the 10th season of the BBC's hospital drama, "Holby City" (1999- ). His charming of the otherwise standoffish Dr. Penny Valentine (Emma Catherwood), in spite of the professional ethics involved and his precarious health as he waited for a transplant, made them a much-talked about story arc across two seasons of the series.

While on holiday on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia in early 2009, he caught the eye of perennial tabloid-fodder, U.K. singer Amy Winehouse. Paparazzi snapped shots of Bowman and Winehouse seemingly more-than-chummy on the beach, and it became a minor story as the oft-narco-addled Winehouse was then estranged from her similarly troubled boyfriend Blake Fielder-Civil, who was serving a jail term at the time. Bowman went on to square-jawed roles in a sequence of indie features: "13Hrs" (2010), a low-rent werewolf flick pairing him with vivacious tabloid darling Gemma Atkinson; "Prowl" (2010), a horror yarn about standard American youth on a standard evil-infested road trip; and "Exteriors," Norwegian filmmakers Marie Kleivdal Kristiansen and Patrik Syversen's innovative examination of the nervy game of "making it" in Hollywood, as seen through the eyes of two aspiring Norwegian actresses vying for work amid pilot season. In 2010, Bowman won a recurring beefcake role on the light ABC Family drama about a team of Olympic-hopeful female gymnasts, "Make it or Break It," playing a male gymnast and would-be love to two of the girls, but one whose feelings are conflicted by his bisexuality.

In 2011, he won the male lead to Miley Cyrus in her would-be grown-up feature, "So Undercover." The summer 2012 release starred Bowman as the campus love interest to Cyrus, herself playing a young but street-smart private investigator working undercover at a college sorority to protect an ex-Mafioso's daughter from mob reprisals. During the shoot, rumors sprang up about an off-screen relationship between Cyrus and Bowman as well. Also in 2011, Bowman graduated to ABC's primetime schedule with "Revenge," an ambitious drama about a young woman, Emily Thorne (Emily VanCamp) who turns up in the New York cloister of the ultra-wealthy the Hamptons, and begins insinuating herself amongst high society circles, but is secretly the daughter of a disgraced family seeking retribution against the swells who framed her father. Bowman played her unlikely, conflicted love interest, Daniel Grayson, the rambunctious, rebellious scion of the family against whom she is seeking vengeance. The show, premiering in the fall of 2011, did extremely well in the ratings, winning its timeslot over well-established cop procedurals "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" (CBS, 2000-15) and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" (NBC, 1999- ), leading to a second season pick-up.

By Matthew Grimm