Warehouse 13 star Eddie McClintock wrestled with

his demons. By Luaine Lee

While Eddie McClintock may play the plucky hero in the thriller Warehouse 13, his real life has been far more taxing.

A latch-key kid as a teenager, he began to tumble into trouble early. He was smoking cigarettes and pot, committing minor acts of vandalism and testing authority at every turn.

But he was also an athlete who wrestled for 12 years, including two years in college. “The duality of my existence at the time was I was an all-county athlete at the same time on the side —when no one was around — I was smoking pot. I wasn’t doing any hard drugs at the time, but I definitely was heading in that direction,” he says seated in a barrel chair in the lounge of a hotel here in Pasadena, California.

McClintock’s parents divorced when he was a sophomore. His dad raised Eddie with a firm set of values, but his construction supply business kept him at work until six in the evening, leaving Eddie with time to kill after school.

Still, he graduated with a degree in business communications in his native Ohio and moved to California to work at his uncle’s insurance company. “I worked there for seven months and he said, ‘You know, I think you need to go to Hollywood. I think there’s other things out there for you.’ My uncle fired me. It hurt, but I knew it was the right thing. My heart wasn’t really in insurance.”

McClintock moved closer to “Hollywood” when he landed a job as a production assistant. “I swept up cigarette butts, got people coffee, drove trucks around and wasn’t particularly good at that either ... I was, like, why am I doing this?

“But I needed some time to get my life together and figure out what it was I wanted to do. And then when I finally kind of started to settle down a little bit somebody said, ‘You should try acting.’”

The lowest point in his life arrived when he sold his father’s high school ring to a crack dealer. “And by the time I got from the crack dealer to my apartment I’d already smoked it. I loved that ring, and I loved my dad. He is my hero. I’ve never told anyone that story,” he sighs.

That incident, and the decision to become an actor, became the catalyst for McClintock to change his life. “Where my athletic background helps is I grew up with the ethic that you never quit. You never give up.” he says, shifting in his chair.

“You never stop. And I had one of the best wrestling coaches in the country. My father wrestled. My dad’s a great purveyor of that mentality as well. He was an athlete. So I’ve always been, like, ‘You won’t beat me. I won’t let you beat me.’ I think it’s the thing that’s kept me alive.”

While he’s the star of a hit TV series on the Syfy channel, McClintock claims he’s “the most successful anonymous guy in town.” Still, he sports an envious resume with a four-part role on Bones, guest spots on My Boys, Desperate Housewives, Friends and Sex and the City, starring roles on Crumbs and Stark Raving Mad. And he has a new movie, A Fish Story, just out.

McClintock has been happily married for seven years to Lynn Sanchez, an MBA graduate who worked in the creative department of G4 TV. She’s now a fulltime mom. They met at an AA meeting and McClintock began to pursue her with his usual resolve. “I kinda chased her down a little bit and she said, ‘Who are you? What are you doing? Are you a stalker?’... She’s more Type A and I’m Type B. We kind of balance each other out,” he says.

They are the parents of two boys, Jack, 7, and Max, 6. “They are the greatest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” says McClintock, pulling out photos of both boys. “The younger one looks exactly like Lynn. She’s dark skinned and dark eyed. Jack looks like me and Max, he looks just like his mama. Being a parent is the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he says.

“It would be so easy so say, ‘You know what? Just do whatever you want.’ After the 10th time saying, ‘How do you ask? What’s the magic word? Did I hear you say please?’ You could say, ‘Whatever.’ But I want my kids to have respect. I want to raise them the way my father raised me. And it’s important to me.” – MCT