Celebrity crush: Traylor Howard (revised)

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It was way past time I update this entry, though there's sadly not a lot of recent work on display -- but some things I left out the first time around, when entries were less thorough.

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Name: Traylor Howard (images | Web site | Twitter)
Hometown: Orlando, Fla., according to her Wikipedia profile.
Best Known For: Television work, mainly. Traylor's most recent starring role was on USA Network's detective dramedy Monk (2005-2009), as Natalie Teeger, the assistant and eventual partner to Tony Shalhoub's "defective detective."

But that wasn't her first major role, not even her first alongside a prominent actor. The short-lived Bram and Alice (with Alfred Molina) preceded it in 2002, and she starred in a pair of 1990s sitcoms: Boston Common (1996-97) with Anthony Clark and Hedy Buress, and the more successful Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place (later Two Guys and a Girl) with future superstar Ryan Reynolds and, in later episodes, future cult TV legend Nathan Fillion.

Feature film work has been less common, but largely followed a comedy trajectory: Son of the Mask with Jamie Kennedy, Dirty Work with Norm McDonald, and Me, Myself, and Irene with (original The Mask star) Jim Carrey.
Humble Beginnings: Traylor did some commercial work in the early days, including a Juicy Fruit commercial while still in high school, her Wikipedia entry notes.

Other TV work includes guest appearances on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, short-lived Supreme Court drama First Monday (which co-starred Boston Common's Buress), long-lived White House drama The West Wing, and probably too-long-lived police drama The Division.

The Courteney Cox Factor: If she looks just like the girl in the Foo Fighters' video for "Breakout," there's a reason.

Why Ye Olde Podcaster Likes Her: Traylor was a crush of mine back in my college years, first as the idealized college girl on Boston Common and later as the working-class restaurant girl on Two Guys and a Girl (the later, shortened title). A lot of Monk fans were unhappy when the title character's first assistant (and nurse) -- Bitty Schram's Sharona -- left abruptly in the middle of season three, but I avoided that entire turmoil by not checking out the show until Traylor arrived when the show returned from its USA Network-standard mid-season break.

With Emmy Clarke, who played her daughter
on Monk. I thought for sure that Monk and Natalie
would end up as a couple by the show's end, but
the way it actually played out was less obvious.

She's pretty in a not-cookie-cutter way, equal parts cute and sexy, skilled at both the witty aside and the emotional stuff -- like fellow crush Allison Mack's cool big sister.
Voice Work: Simon Says Let's Stop Climate Change! (2010 short) (Amazon | iTunes)
Music Videos: "Breakout" by Foo Fighters (iTunes)

TV and Web Series Credits: Monk, season 8 (Amazon | iTunes) * Monk, season 7 (Amazon | iTunes) * Monk, season 6 (Amazon | iTunes) * Monk, season 5 (Amazon | iTunes) * Monk, season 4 (Amazon | iTunes) * Monk, season 3 (Amazon | iTunes) * Bram and Alice (Amazon | iTunes) * The Division, season 2: "Remembrance" (Amazon | iTunes) * First Monday (2002): "Right to Die" (Amazon | iTunes) * The West Wing, season 3: "100,000 Airplanes" (Amazon | iTunes) * Two Guys and a Girl, season 4 (Amazon | iTunes) * Two Guys and a Girl, season 3 (Amazon | iTunes) * Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place, season 2 (Amazon | iTunes) * Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place, season 1 (Amazon | iTunes) * Boston Common, season 2 (Amazon | iTunes) * Boston Common, season 1 (Amazon | iTunes) * Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, season 2: "Madame Ex" (Amazon | iTunes)
Film and TV-movie Credits: Son of The Mask (Amazon | iTunes) * Me, Myself & Irene (Amazon | iTunes) * Dirty Work (1998) (Amazon | iTunes) * Confessions of a Sexist Pig (Amazon | iTunes) * Till the End of the Night (1995, credited as Traylor H. Hall) (Amazon | iTunes)