TORTOLA, British Virgin Islands—Exiting a taxi cab in Fort Lauderdale to get on the Celebrity EDGE cruise ship I found myself face-to-face with a celebrity. “Hey, I know you,” I said to a fellow boarder. “Glad you do,” he responded.
I didn’t really know him. I recognized him, yes, but over the next several days our paths crossed at the ice cream station or the feeding trough.
I learned that Emmy Award-winning actor Leslie Allen Jordan, best known for his roles in “Hearts Afire” and “Will & Grace” spent two years as a half-hearted student at the University of Kentucky. “I studied journalism, but spent most of my time out at Keeneland working as an exercise rider,” said the 4-foot-11 Tennessee native.
“As you can probably guess; I really wanted to be a jockey.”
According to Jordan, he had no plans of getting into show business. It was something he more or less tripped into. “I was always funny, but that was just to keep the bullies at bay,” said Jordan, who has appeared both on stage and screen.
His best-known onstage performances were as Earl “Brother Boy” Ingram in ”Sordid Lives, ” a role he took to the big screen in the popular cult film of the same name.
In a 2014 interview, Jordan said that he had a difficult time growing up Southern Baptist. "I was baptized 14 times. Every time the preacher would say, 'Come forward, sinners!' I’d say 'Oooh, ... I better go forward.'”
His life as a “Southern Baptist Sissy” and the writing experience he gained at UK led to the play “Lost in the Pershing Point Hotel” and two books —“My Trip Down the Pink Carpet” (2008) and “Hysterical Blindness and Other Southern Tragedies That Have Plagued My Life Thus Far.”
During an appearance on Today with Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford, Jordan discussed his life and career. His mother lives in Chattanooga. His father was a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army and died in a plane crash when Jordan was 11.
After his pursuit of Thoroughbred greatness failed, he eventually moved to Los Angeles where he struggled with drugs and alcohol.
In 2010, Jordan told talk show host Wendy Williams that he had been sober for 30 years. In the same appearance, Jordan said that before he gave up drinking, he once shared a cell with actor Robert Downey Jr., and when they both appeared later on “Ally McBeal,” Downey couldn't place where they had met before.
“When I was at UK, I had not the intention of going into show business, but I’d say it has turned out OK, ” said Jordan, who has fond memories of Kentucky and will be performing in Louisville “sometime in March.”
He appeared as a newspaper editor in the movie “The Help.” His TV career includes guest appearances on “Murphy Brown,” “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,” “Star Trek: Voyager,” “Caroline in the City,” “Pee-Wee's Playhouse,” “Reba,” “Boston Public,” “Boston Legal,” and “Nash Bridges.”
On the television series Will & Grace, Jordan played Karen's pretentious, sexually ambiguous rival Beverley Leslie for which he received an Emmy Award for Best Guest Actor in a Comedy Series at the 58th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards in 2006.