Rex Linn

During the 1980's, former Oklahoma bank manager Rex Linn clawed his way up the local TV commercial and film ladder, finally landing a role as a serial killer in the 1989 Roy Scheider thriller "Night Game." Moving to Los Angeles the following year, he was able to parlay his somewhat distinctive stocky look into some rapidly snowballing TV work.

In 1993, Linn scored his first big L.A. break, playing a United States Treasury agent in the Sylvester Stallone action film "Cliffhanger." Multiple arcs on a new version of the TV series "The Fugitive" and "JAG" finally gave way in 2003 to the mother lode for any actor, a recurring role as Detective Frank Tripp on "CSI.: Miami," for many years the most watched TV series not just in the United States but around the world. Not bad for a man who could have easily gone in another, more mundane direction when his Oklahoma bank was declared insolvent in 1982. Today, he likely has more in the bank than the bulk of his former customers put together.