Collin County Living Well Magazine May/June 2017 | Page 11

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By Diane Meehl
hen Patrick Dempsey first auditioned for the role
of Dr. Derek Shepherd, he remembers being terrified.
Famed creator Shondra Rhimes—who President
Obama once claimed, “owns Thursday night TV”—
wore a stone-cold expression.
Perhaps it was because like so many women, she too was
charmed by his dazzling smile and easy charm. Now legions
of fans can’t even imagine Grey’s Anatomy, one of television’s
most enduring series, without the 11 seasons in which Patrick
Dempsey played hot neurosurgeon and “Mer’s” better half,
“Der.” (Dr. Meredith Grey is the show’s central character, and
it is through her lens the stories
are narrated each week.) It was
an iconic role for which the ac-
claimed actor earned a Screen
Actors Guild Award and a Peo-
ple’s Choice Award to add to
his cache.
While Dempsey has also served
as the “face” for lofty brands
including L’Oreal and Versace,
while also toggling a career as
a racecar driver and philan-
thropist, most of the world will
always know him affectionately
as, “McDreamy.”
Beautiful chemistry
Dempsey, now 51, flashed that
winning smile and held Grey’s Anatomy’s rabid following in the
palm of his hand for more than a decade. He continues to win
over new fans as they discover Grey’s on Netflix. Audiences
followed Derek and Meredith’s journey from drunken one-night-
stand to aching on-again-off-again love romance to enduring
love and marriage—all while navigating demanding careers as
surgeons and keeping up with the steamy drama the patients
and staff at “Seattle Grace” managed to stumble through.
Dempsey staring alongside Renee
Zellweger in the comedy
Bridget Jones’s Baby.
How did Dempsey and co-star Ellen Pompeo manage to make
audiences fall so desperately in love with their aching romance?
According to Dempsey it was, “Beautiful chemistry.”
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