Shane West

Shannon Bruce Snaith (born June 10, 1978), better known as Shane West, is an American actor, singer and songwriter. He is known for his portrayal of Eli Sammler in the ABC family drama Once and Again, Landon Carter in A Walk to Remember, Dr. Ray Barnett in the NBC medical drama ER, Michael Bishop in The CW spy drama Nikita and in the WGN fantasy adventure historical drama Salem as John Alden. West received critical acclaim for his performance portraying Darby Crash in the biopic What We Do Is Secret. As well as acting, West has performed with punk rock band the Germs, Jonny Was, and the Twilight Creeps. Early life West was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the son of Leah Catherine ( Launey), a lawyer, and Don Snaith, a drugstore owner. Both his parents were musicians and had their own punk bands. His mother is of Cajun French descent and his father was born in Jamaica, of British and Portuguese-Jewish origin. He is the eldest of three children with a sister Simone and a half-sister Marli Ann. His parents divorced in 1982 when he was four years old. Influenced by his parents, he grew up listening to the Clash, the Jam, Blondie, Elvis Costello, and the Kinks. He said: "I always thought I would be doing music rather than acting." At the age of ten, West and his sister Simone moved to Compton, California with their mother because she was looking for a better job. They later moved to Norwalk, California. Embarrassed by his feminine first name, West went by his middle name Bruce but changed his name to Shane West in high school when he took up acting. He struggled for two years and lived at his manager's house, before making his acting debut in 1995, appearing in the CBS drama Picket Fences in the season 4, episode 6 "Heart of Saturday Night", where he played Dave Lattimore.