Fearlessness has benefits for actor Dean McDermott

BY CROWN FEATURES SYNDICATE Comments 0
Published: October 23, 2009

A certain fearlessness drives Dean McDermott, and it drives his famous wife of three years, Tori Spelling, a little batty. Here they have two tiny children — ages 2 and 1 — and what does McDermott do when he’s not acting? He races motorcycles. Really fast. Like 170 mph.

Dean McDermott stars in the Hallmark Channel movie "Always & Forever,” which debuts at 8 p.m. Saturday. CROWN MEDIA PHOTO

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He says he feels this dangerous pastime makes him a better parent, husband and person.

"It’s my therapy,” McDermott says. "I come back from it so excited and pumped. It isn’t just an adrenaline amp. It just helps focus me on the fact I have the best life in the world, a beautiful wife and family, that I’m amazingly blessed.”

McDermott, 42, also understands that his hobby is the kind that can cause his well-being to plummet and leave his two sons (including a 10-year-old from a previous marriage) and daughter fatherless and his wife husband-less.

"Tori’s thing is, ‘Look, I understand you can get hit by a bus tomorrow,’” McDermott says. "But I have to cross the street. I don’t have to put myself on a motorcycle going 180 miles an hour. But at the same time, as I explain to my wife, I have to do it. So it’s not really a choice at all.”

We see that marital dynamic on their reality series "Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood,” which chronicles the couple’s balancing of work, play and child-rearing that morphed out of their bed-and-breakfast effort "Tori & Dean: Inn Love.”

But the polite and jovial McDermott remains far more than just Mr. Tori Spelling. He has carved out an extensive and consistent body of acting work in Hollywood spanning 20 years, and his career continues to move forward with a leading-man turn in the Hallmark Channel movie "Always & Forever,” debuting at 8 p.m. Saturday.

The movie stars McDermott as the male half of a pair of high school sweethearts who goes his separate way from his girlfriend (Rena Sofer) after graduation. The two come together at their 20-year reunion, and the feelings return with a vengeance. Barbara Eden also stars.

Tori has said in interviews that she fears he could stray. After all, McDermott and Spelling were married to different people when they hooked up in 2005 while shooting the made-for-TV movie "Mind Over Murder.” But McDermott says the time he and Sofer (also married) enjoyed together on set was innocent, given that "we’re both deeply in love with our mates.”