In a country as chock-full of smoldering sensuality as Canada, sex symbols come and sex symbols go. Pierre Trudeau, Paul Gross, Captain Kangaroo (that's right, he's ours). Add to this illustrious list the mercurial, genie-award-winning, retina-lacerated (I'll get to that), improbably named Callum Keith Rennie.

Where to begin a biography of this man, who has risen to prominence working with such Canadian icons as Don McKellar, Bruce McDonald and the aforementioned Paul Gross, is a dicey matter; already, there is a sort of lore surrounding Rennie's apparently tempestuous past. Reports vary on his age - anywhere from 33 to 40. Rumours abound of the halcyon days of his youth, including:

(a) a high school friendship with Bruce McCulloch (Kids in the Hall, director of Dogpark and Superstar) during which they founded a punk band and Rennie fashioned himself a mohawk

(b) he has a tattoo of the Champion Sparks logo

(c) he blew his college loan money on a fishing trip

(d) between the ages of 26 and 29 he would only be addressed as Nigel, the Smurf who knows macrame*.

Which of the above are true? Aside from my Smurfette pajamas and matching overcoat, clues are few and far between. Let's review what we do know, referring to information culled from the ultimate accurate news-gathering organization that is the internet:

Callum Keith Rennie was born with the name Callum Keith Rennie on September 14, 1960 (again, the year has never been verified; "Hippy-freaks were around, but yippie-freaks were not, if that helps ya," he has been known to sneer at a journalist for asking) in Sunderland, England. Due primarily to its silly name, his parents decided to move the family, and as a four year old Callum found himself washed up on the balmy shores of Edmonton, Alberta. Originally, he wanted to be a mountaineer - as a youth, he supported his climbing habit by laying railroad tracks, cooking and digging ditches. McCulloch cured him of the climbing fetish, however, convincing him that a more masculine and intrepid life awaited him playing music and working at a radio station.

At twenty-five, our hero Callum got the acting bug, performing in an acclaimed version of the David Mamet play American Buffalo at the A.B.O.P. Theatre in Edmonton. He moved to Toronto to further his acting career and instead fell on hard times, dabbling in drugs and alcohol though, thankfully, not Smurfs. There was a period during which he thought he saw the face of Gargamel in his daily tortilla, but it was brief and left him unscarred. A silver lining with the drug situation was the happenstance of a bad deal landing him in Vancouver, where he enrolled in the Bruhanski Theatre Studio.

On the basis of his first profesional performance in the play Lost Souls and Missing Persons, Callum was invited to work at the Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake. In 1993, his substance abuse came to a head after a drunken brawl in a Vancouver pub, during which glass from a shattered window pierced his retina. Luckily he didn't lose his eye, though it was damaged (the coke bottle glasses he wears in Double Happiness are his own). The incident proved life-changing, as he hasn't had a drink since.

His TV and film career has been varied and acclaimed. From award-winning work on the children's show My Life as a Dog (based on the modern classic film by recently Oscar nominated director Lasse Hallstrom) to edgy, serious material like Side Effects and the CBC movie For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down, Rennie developed and matured as an actor rapidly. He stepped seamlessly into the role of detective Stanley Kowalski, mountie Paul Gross' troubled firebrand of a partner, for the final season of Due South.

Most recently he shone as neurotic Kwikie-mart impresario Newbie, costarring with Don McKellar and Molly Parker on CBC's unique and demented comedy series Twitch City. In 1995 he won a Genie Nomination for his supporting work as Sandra Oh's nerdy boyfriend in Double Happiness, in 1997 he toplined in the rock-and-roll road movie cult hit Hard Core Logo, and in 1998 he won a Genie Award for Best Supporting Actor in Don McKellar's Last Night.

Currently, he's just begun work on Lynne Stopkewich's new movie, her follow-up to Kissed, costarring alongside Molly Parker once again. The elusive Callum Keith Rennie is our rugged and beloved nation's version of a shape-changer of ancient myth, like the werewolf, or Roseanne. His frontiersman's fearlessness may have served him ill early in life, but it has also helped him carve out a diverse and accomplished career for himself. As his successes multiply, it becomes increasingly apparent that he is just starting to scratch the surface of his immense talent.

*Macrame is French for 'way to knit and be cool at the same time'

Staffwriter: Chris Ferko

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