Surely you've seen the billboards and magazine ads featuring a dreamy, dark-haired, windswept man at the helm of his powerful racing yacht? That man, TV personality Carter Oosterhouse, is actually a skilled sailor and not just playing one in a photograph. It's a good thing, too -- reports of the photo shoot tell of harrowing winds and stormy seas that threatened to capsize the 40-foot yacht off the coast of Brazil. "It was an adventure," says Oosterhouse, who stopped in recently at Toronto's Sutton Place Hotel to launch Coty's new fragrance for men, Nautica Voyage (100 mL eau de toilette spray, $69, is available now at drugstores and department stores).
Here are six things you should know about Carter Oosterhouse:
1. Oosterhouse doesn't just play a carpenter on TV.
"I got into woodworking when I was about 13 or 14," he says. "My brothers are carpenters. I started by picking up trash on their job sites, then kept up the carpentry to put myself through school." How serendipitous: Oosterhouse got his big break when he landed a spot as a hunky, laid-back carpenter on TLC's Trading Spaces in 2003. He was part of NBC's Three Wishes and is a contributor on The Today Show.
2. He can set you up with a concisely outlined balanced diet.
Obviously he's NOT available for consultations, but Oosterhouse does have a B.A. in nutrition and communication from Central Michigan University, which he attended on a rugby scholarship.
3. He considers moving boxes an honest day's work.
Oosterhouse's plan to pursue his interest in nutrition once he got to L.A. was derailed when he got a production job with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's Project Greenlight. "I was hired to move boxes," he laughs. Soon, he was reading scripts and writing synopses for the company, as well as taking acting classes and appearing in ads and commercials, including one for Gillette's M3Power razor. "Being behind the scenes was an advantage," he says. "The job allowed me to get the vibe of Hollywood -- it demystified everything. People also get to know you in a way that's different from just meeting you at auditions."
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