Celebrity crush: Nora Zehetner (updated)

Here's another revised entry from the early days.

Name: Nora Zehetner
Hometown: Her Wikipedia entry lists a number of Texas towns, but we'll forgive her -- not her fault. She escaped; that's the important thing. :)
Best Known For: Zehetner had a recurring role in the 2009-10 season of the hospital soap Grey's Anatomy, easily her most high-profile role, and she's been seen a few times in Mad Men season 4 as Phoebe, a nurse who seems impervious to neighbor Don Draper's charms. Previous work includes extended stays on Everwood (where I first saw her, as the best friend to the character played by fellow celebrity Emily VanCamp) and Heroes (as the mind controller Eden in the first season).

(Interestingly enough, VanCamp's character later became best friends with a character played by actress and probable future celebrity crush profilee Sarah Drew -- who played the best friend of Zehetner's character on Grey's Anatomy. Their characters never met on Everwood, nor does there seem any reason Zehetner's character would meet the character Sarah Drew played on Mad Men, namely the wife of closeted gay ad man Sal.)

If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out: Her role as a femme fatale in the high school noir movie Brick also showcased Zehetner's poetic delivery skills -- offering a musical reading of "The Sun Whose Rays Are All Ablaze" from the opera The Mikado. (You only hear her perform a fragment of the song in the movie, but the soundtrack contains the entire piece as performed by her.)
Humble Beginnings: Bit parts include American Pie 2 (as "Girl at Party") and an episode of Gilmore Girls (as "Girl in Hallway").
Obligatory Edgy Stuff: She's not a huge enough celebrity for a lot of scandalous information to be out there about her, so I'll just mention that she has a brief nude scene in the movie Conversations With Other Women.
Why Ye Olde Podcaster Likes Her: To be honest, Zehetner is a dark horse for Ye Olde Podcaster's list of celebrity crushes. True, she's a brunette like most of the others, but if she were just a model, Ye Olde Podcaster would write her off as too skinny.

As stated in Mental Nomad Podcast 143, which started the whole celebrity crushes series here ... there's some hard-to-define quality that draws my attention. Her role of Eden on Heroes -- a young woman who could get people to do anything she told them to -- was a bit of casting that sums it up. There's just something about her that demands attention. So though she's small and physically not at all imposing, I found her plausible as a femme fatale in the Raymond Chandler pastiche-via-high school that was Brick. (And actually, her appearance on Mad Men solved the mystery -- there's an air of Audrey Hepburn about her.)

TV credits: Mad Men, season 4 (Amazon | iTunes) * Grey's Anatomy, season 6 (Amazon | iTunes) * Southland, season 2: "Butch and Sundance" (Amazon | iTunes) * Heroes, season 1 (Amazon | iTunes) * Everwood, season 2 (Amazon | iTunes) * Everwood, season 1 (Amazon | iTunes) * Off Centre, season 2: "The Deflower Half-Hour" (Amazon | iTunes) * She Spies, season 1: "Daddy's Girl" (Amazon | iTunes) * Septuplets (Amazon | iTunes) * Going to California, season 1: "Taking Care of Biscuits" (Amazon | iTunes) * Gilmore Girls, season 1: "Rory's Birthday Parties" (Amazon | iTunes)
Movie and soundtrack credits: Spooner (Amazon | iTunes) * The Brothers Bloom (Amazon | iTunes) * Princess: A Modern Fairytale (Amazon | iTunes) * Remarkable Power (Amazon | iTunes) * Beneath (Amazon | iTunes) * Fifty Pills (Amazon | iTunes) * The Adventures of Big Handsome Guy and His Little Friend (Amazon | iTunes) * Conversations with Other Women (Amazon | iTunes) * Brick (Amazon | iTunes) * Brick soundtrack (Amazon | iTunes) * The Burning Land (Amazon | iTunes) * Point of Origin (Amazon | iTunes) * R.S.V.P. (Amazon | iTunes) * May (Amazon | iTunes) * An American Town (Amazon | iTunes) * American Pie 2 (Amazon | iTunes) * Tart (Amazon | iTunes)