5 TALL IN THE SADDLE Fast forward 21 years and Linn plays the cynical police Det. Frank Tripp on CSI: Miami opposite David Caruso starring as Lt. Horatio Caine. “It’s great working with David Caruso. He raises the bar professionally. I do 99 percent of my scenes with him, and you have to be prepared to come to work with David. He has helped me become a better professional.” Fans also know Linn for his bad-guy role in Cliffhanger starring Sylvester Stallone and John Lithgow. One of Linn’s favorite experiences was playing cowboy Frank McLaury in the 1994 Wyatt Earp film featuring Kevin Costner. “I ride into Tombstone in late afternoon with purple skies ahead of me,” Linn recalls. “I’m on my kick-ass horse named Dallas, have on the coolest wardrobe, a six-gun and a scar on my face and think to myself, ‘I dreamed about this as a kid. Hell, I’d pay them to do this. Thank you, Lord. I will never forget this moment. Never.’” More recently, he appeared in Appaloosa, written by fellow Oklahomans Ed Harris and Robert Knott. Although Linn had worked with Knott several times as an actor, he had never worked with longtime friend Harris until Appaloosa. In April, Linn emceed the Western Heritage Awards for the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. The Hall of Great Western Performers inducted Linn’s close friend Tom Selleck with whom he has filmed four westerns. “I have seen my dad on the stage at the Cowboy Hall a lot of times,” Linn says. “So inducting Tom Selleck was a great thing to do and really special. It was my tribute to my dad.” In the 1980s, Linn’s dad gave legal advice to help the museum weather a financial crisis that almost forced a move out of state. Linn remembers his father’s last words before walking on the stage to induct Selleck, “Carry the torch and represent the Linn family well.” “I’ve acted in a lot of successful westerns, and it has helped me growing up around cowboys,” Linn says. “I’m a good rider, and I don’t have to fake much. But I have never considered myself good enough to ease into the cowboy world.” A LONGHORN COWPOKE Linn may deny he’s a cowboy, but he’ll admit to being a cowpoke even though he’s been a Longhorn fan since he was a toddler. “But I am a longhorn and a cowpoke, baby! Longhorns and cowpokes never argue. We have one thing in common. OSU wants to beat OU. Texas wants to beat OU!” Last year, Linn saw the Boone Pickens Stadium for the first time when Texas played OSU. “I walked in the stadium and said, ‘Wow.’ The stadium is unbelievable. I am so proud of OSU fans. It’s good to be a part of Stillwater.” There’s no doubt Linn loves his life — football, family, friends and then the acting … one thing seems to elude him, however. Marriage, he says. That’s about to change. “I came all the way to California to find my Texas girl,” Linn says of Renee Derese, a trauma unit nurse. “The guys on the (CSI: Miami) set said I have met my match. “I am the luckiest guy on the planet.” TOP LEFT One of Rex Linn’s favorite experiences was playing cowboy Frank McLaury in the 1994 Wyatt Earp film featuring Kevin Costner. Adam Baldwin, left, played his brother Tom McLaury. BOTTOM LEFT Rex Linn and fiancee Renee Derese, a trauma unit nurse, are both native Texans. BELOW Rex Linn plays homicide Det. Frank Tripp on the CBS hit CSI: Miami starring David Carusco, left, as Lt. Horatio Caine.
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