Sookie
CSI Level One
I found a lovely article about George on Temple Daily Telegrams website:
http://www.tdtnews.com/index/news/show/76038
BELTON — Flick on CBS’s hit show “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” and there’s Nick Stokes: a hunky Texan, introspective and sometimes troubled.
But pick up a Belton High School yearbook from the 1980s or talk with those who knew him, and you get a different picture of George Eads, the Belton native who plays Stokes.
Not long ago, Eads was just your typical Texas teenager, a jokester who drew caricatures of friends, left a trail of doting girls in his wake and, according to one neighbor, drove perhaps one of the ugliest cars in town.
Funny though, the beefcake actor — once named one of TV Guide’s Sexiest Men Alive — may not be the most recognizable name from perhaps Bell County’s most famous family.
“Most people will say, ‘Oh, that’s the house Cappy used to live in,’” laughed Roland Flentge, who bought his home in a quiet neighborhood of north Belton in the early 1990s from George’s parents, former Bell County District Attorney Arthur C. Eads, or “Cappy,” and Eads’ mother, Dr. Vivian Baker, recently retired Belton ISD superintendent.
Flentge never met Eads. But the Hollywood celebrity probably was about 5-foot-7 or 5-foot-8 inches in high school, according to a couple of faded pencil markings left on his kitchen wall that once tracked the height of someone with the initial “G.”
“We’re not sure it’s George, though,” Roland Flentge’s wife, Helen, said.
‘I thought you’d never ask’
But that’s where George lived, all right, said Robert Gosney, a longtime neighbor who lives two lots down from the Flentges.
Gosney’s face lights up thinking about him.
“He was just the funniest little boy I ever seen in my life,” Gosney chuckled.
Eads and a buddy used to stop by on weekends or summer afternoons, he said.
“I’d hear a knock on my door and there’d stand George and his friend,” he remembers. Which happens, of course, when you own a pool table down the block in an era before video games.
Eads would never intrude though, Gosney remembers. Eads and his friend, maybe 10 or 11 years old, just sort of stopped by to say hello.
Sometimes, Gosney would play dumb. He knew why they knocked on the door, of course. While the boys, most likely, were just itching to run downstairs for a round of pool, Gosney would talk about the weather or something else.
“Finally I’d say, ‘Hey, George, would you guys like to come in and shoot some pool?” Gosney said.
And, like clockwork, in a polite, aw-shucks kind of way, Eads would shoot back, “I thought you’d never ask.”
“That was always his response,” Gosney said with a laugh.
‘Happy-go-lucky type’
You’d be hard-pressed to meet anyone with a bad word to say about the young Eads.
Not from neighbors like Gosney, and especially not from former coaches, the ones who watched an affable boy squeeze every ounce of athleticism from an undersized frame.
“He had the heart of a champion,” former Belton Tigers football coach Dick Stafford said. “He didn’t shirk work at all.”
Short and skinny, Eads is usually pictured in the front row of his team photos throughout middle and high school.
Despite his size, Eads still had the respect of his teammates for bringing tenacity and a work ethic that transcended his playing time, Stafford said.
Those like Eads — “They earn the respect of their teammates,” he said, “and he certainly had that.”
A different picture
With his straight blond hair and bright eyes, strong jaw and dimples, in some areas of life, Eads didn’t have to work too hard.
“Yeah, the girls kind of followed him around,” said Shelley Cheatham, a close friend who went with Eads to his senior prom in 1985.
There was an “air” about him, she said, that made him one of the popular guys in school. Always a jokester, Eads was your “typical teenager,” she remembered, and a budding conversationalist — “he could talk about anything at any time.”
Her friends outside Belton look at her sideways now when she says she once dated the hunky actor.
“Yeah, none of them believe me,” she said, laughing.
And like other people who knew Eads as a young man, Cheatham was surprised by Eads’ interest in acting. In high school, he was more or less your everyday jock, she said.
“I would never have thought he would be interested in it,” she said.
His character on “CSI” is far different from the wisecracking teen she knew as a youngster.
“When I watch him on TV, I just wait for him to crack up or something, because he’s such a jokester,” she said. “He’s just a happy-go-lucky type.”
Hollywood success
The road to Hollywood success wasn’t all happy. After graduating from Texas Tech University (unlike his “CSI” character, who graduated from Texas A&M) and honing his skills in a Dallas acting school, Eads rolled the dice on Hollywood.
His former high school track and field coach, Robert Murphy, remembers Eads once living out of his car on a Southern California beach.
His former English teacher, Peggy Hughes, said Eads told her students about his early hardships during a visit to the school a few years ago.
“He didn’t know where he was going to get his next meal,” she remembered him saying. But the story, of course, was framed in a moral about following your dreams.
And that tenacity and work ethic, once demonstrated on the football field, served him well fighting the odds of a Hollywood career.
Murphy saved a paper, maybe 25 years old, that Eads once wrote about his goals for the upcoming athletic season.
“And I won’t give up until they have been achieved,” it ends.
‘Nicest young man’
Years ago, Gosney, his old neighbor, ran across Eads at a function in Salado.
Gosney, 30 years later, struggled to remember that phrase Eads used to say all the time on his front porch.
“What was that thing you used to say all the time, George?” he asked.
Eads smiled like it was yesterday: “I thought you’d never ask,” Gosney remembered.
He laughs retelling the story, remembering the same polite, charismatic boy who poked his head out from the doorway whenever an errant pool ball fell off the table and hit the tile.
The Gosneys would just pretend not to notice because they were such good kids. It’s something many in Belton still remember, and notice.
“George hasn’t changed a bit,” Gosney said. “He was always just the nicest young man.”
On the same website, I found another article with a mention of George:
Several years ago George Eads, a star on “CSI: Las Vegas,” autographed a picture for Burns.
“Come to Hollywood,” it says. “We need a pro!”
Eads grew up in Belton and, thanks to his father, was a client before his career as an actor developed.
To read the full article, click on this link:
http://www.tdtnews.com/index/news/show/76067?free_trial=true
http://www.tdtnews.com/index/news/show/76038
BELTON — Flick on CBS’s hit show “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” and there’s Nick Stokes: a hunky Texan, introspective and sometimes troubled.
But pick up a Belton High School yearbook from the 1980s or talk with those who knew him, and you get a different picture of George Eads, the Belton native who plays Stokes.
Not long ago, Eads was just your typical Texas teenager, a jokester who drew caricatures of friends, left a trail of doting girls in his wake and, according to one neighbor, drove perhaps one of the ugliest cars in town.
Funny though, the beefcake actor — once named one of TV Guide’s Sexiest Men Alive — may not be the most recognizable name from perhaps Bell County’s most famous family.
“Most people will say, ‘Oh, that’s the house Cappy used to live in,’” laughed Roland Flentge, who bought his home in a quiet neighborhood of north Belton in the early 1990s from George’s parents, former Bell County District Attorney Arthur C. Eads, or “Cappy,” and Eads’ mother, Dr. Vivian Baker, recently retired Belton ISD superintendent.
Flentge never met Eads. But the Hollywood celebrity probably was about 5-foot-7 or 5-foot-8 inches in high school, according to a couple of faded pencil markings left on his kitchen wall that once tracked the height of someone with the initial “G.”
“We’re not sure it’s George, though,” Roland Flentge’s wife, Helen, said.
‘I thought you’d never ask’
But that’s where George lived, all right, said Robert Gosney, a longtime neighbor who lives two lots down from the Flentges.
Gosney’s face lights up thinking about him.
“He was just the funniest little boy I ever seen in my life,” Gosney chuckled.
Eads and a buddy used to stop by on weekends or summer afternoons, he said.
“I’d hear a knock on my door and there’d stand George and his friend,” he remembers. Which happens, of course, when you own a pool table down the block in an era before video games.
Eads would never intrude though, Gosney remembers. Eads and his friend, maybe 10 or 11 years old, just sort of stopped by to say hello.
Sometimes, Gosney would play dumb. He knew why they knocked on the door, of course. While the boys, most likely, were just itching to run downstairs for a round of pool, Gosney would talk about the weather or something else.
“Finally I’d say, ‘Hey, George, would you guys like to come in and shoot some pool?” Gosney said.
And, like clockwork, in a polite, aw-shucks kind of way, Eads would shoot back, “I thought you’d never ask.”
“That was always his response,” Gosney said with a laugh.
‘Happy-go-lucky type’
You’d be hard-pressed to meet anyone with a bad word to say about the young Eads.
Not from neighbors like Gosney, and especially not from former coaches, the ones who watched an affable boy squeeze every ounce of athleticism from an undersized frame.
“He had the heart of a champion,” former Belton Tigers football coach Dick Stafford said. “He didn’t shirk work at all.”
Short and skinny, Eads is usually pictured in the front row of his team photos throughout middle and high school.
Despite his size, Eads still had the respect of his teammates for bringing tenacity and a work ethic that transcended his playing time, Stafford said.
Those like Eads — “They earn the respect of their teammates,” he said, “and he certainly had that.”
A different picture
With his straight blond hair and bright eyes, strong jaw and dimples, in some areas of life, Eads didn’t have to work too hard.
“Yeah, the girls kind of followed him around,” said Shelley Cheatham, a close friend who went with Eads to his senior prom in 1985.
There was an “air” about him, she said, that made him one of the popular guys in school. Always a jokester, Eads was your “typical teenager,” she remembered, and a budding conversationalist — “he could talk about anything at any time.”
Her friends outside Belton look at her sideways now when she says she once dated the hunky actor.
“Yeah, none of them believe me,” she said, laughing.
And like other people who knew Eads as a young man, Cheatham was surprised by Eads’ interest in acting. In high school, he was more or less your everyday jock, she said.
“I would never have thought he would be interested in it,” she said.
His character on “CSI” is far different from the wisecracking teen she knew as a youngster.
“When I watch him on TV, I just wait for him to crack up or something, because he’s such a jokester,” she said. “He’s just a happy-go-lucky type.”
Hollywood success
The road to Hollywood success wasn’t all happy. After graduating from Texas Tech University (unlike his “CSI” character, who graduated from Texas A&M) and honing his skills in a Dallas acting school, Eads rolled the dice on Hollywood.
His former high school track and field coach, Robert Murphy, remembers Eads once living out of his car on a Southern California beach.
His former English teacher, Peggy Hughes, said Eads told her students about his early hardships during a visit to the school a few years ago.
“He didn’t know where he was going to get his next meal,” she remembered him saying. But the story, of course, was framed in a moral about following your dreams.
And that tenacity and work ethic, once demonstrated on the football field, served him well fighting the odds of a Hollywood career.
Murphy saved a paper, maybe 25 years old, that Eads once wrote about his goals for the upcoming athletic season.
“And I won’t give up until they have been achieved,” it ends.
‘Nicest young man’
Years ago, Gosney, his old neighbor, ran across Eads at a function in Salado.
Gosney, 30 years later, struggled to remember that phrase Eads used to say all the time on his front porch.
“What was that thing you used to say all the time, George?” he asked.
Eads smiled like it was yesterday: “I thought you’d never ask,” Gosney remembered.
He laughs retelling the story, remembering the same polite, charismatic boy who poked his head out from the doorway whenever an errant pool ball fell off the table and hit the tile.
The Gosneys would just pretend not to notice because they were such good kids. It’s something many in Belton still remember, and notice.
“George hasn’t changed a bit,” Gosney said. “He was always just the nicest young man.”
On the same website, I found another article with a mention of George:
Several years ago George Eads, a star on “CSI: Las Vegas,” autographed a picture for Burns.
“Come to Hollywood,” it says. “We need a pro!”
Eads grew up in Belton and, thanks to his father, was a client before his career as an actor developed.
To read the full article, click on this link:
http://www.tdtnews.com/index/news/show/76067?free_trial=true
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