Christopher Meloni

Christopher Peter Meloni (; born April 2, 1961) is an American actor. He is best known for playing NYPD Detective Elliot Stabler on the NBC legal drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999–2011, 2021–present) and its spin-off Law & Order: Organized Crime (2021–present), for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in 2006. He also played inmate Chris Keller on the HBO prison drama Oz (1998–2003) and starred in and executive produced the Syfy series Happy! (2017–2019). Meloni's film credits include 12 Monkeys (1995), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), Runaway Bride (1999), Wet Hot American Summer (2001), Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004), Green Lantern: First Flight (2009), 42 (2013) and Man of Steel (2013). Early life Meloni was born in Washington, D.C., the youngest of three children of Cecile (née Chagnon; 1926–2016), a homemaker, and Charles Robert Meloni (1927–2012), an endocrinologist. He has an older brother and sister. His maternal ancestry is French Canadian, and he is a descendant of Matthias Farnsworth. His paternal ancestry is Italian; one great-grandfather was born in Sardinia and another was born in Velva.<ref name=fdr1>Stated on Finding Your Roots, February 9, 2021</ref> Meloni attended St. Stephen's School (now St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School) in Alexandria, Virginia, and played quarterback on the football team. After graduating from St. Stephens, he attended the University of Colorado-Boulder where he took acting classes for electives. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in history in 1983. Following completion of college, Meloni went to New York, where he continued his acting studies with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre as well as the Center for the Media Arts.