30 Unbelievable Facts About Mark Harmon We Bet You Never Knew

Mark Harmon, who was the second "Sexiest Man Alive," is wide popular for his character as special agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs in the "NCIS" series. His entire family is known is kind of rooted in the entertainment industry. Here are some really interesting things to know about the American television and film actor:

1.  He had a very successful college football career at UCLA and was even offered the opportunity to turn professional with a contract to play for the NFL New England Patriots, which he turned down stating he was not good enough and that college was about getting education and not to build a career as a jock.
2.  He uses a 1972 Airstream trailer on the set of "NCIS" that he restored himself as a dressing room. The trailer reportedly has red-and-white checkered floors, and an 8-track player.
3.  His first television appearance was with his father in a commercial for Kellogg's Product 19 cereal, as his father was its longstanding TV spokesman.
4.  He was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in front of 6253 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on October 1, 2012.
5.  He was cast as Leroy Jethro Gibbs on "NCIS," by the series creator/producer Donald P. Bellisario, after watching his commanding performance as a Secret Service agent on "The West Wing."
6.  Harmon was voted as the fourth-most-popular actor on prime-time television, in the year 2011. He has been ranked as one among the most popular TV actors since then.
7.  In preparation for his various roles in different series, he reportedly studied American Sign Language with The Sign Language Company.
8.  He almost chose to play football for Oklahoma, but decided against it to play for Bruins, because their program was on a downswing and he wanted to help turn it around.
9.  He risked his life to save two teenage boys from a burning car, so they wouldn't be burned to death outside of his home, using a sledgehammer from his garage to break the window of their car, in the year 1996.
10.  He was chosen by the People's magazine as the "Sexiest Man Alive" in their second annual edition, in the year 1986. He was just after the inaugural winner Mel Gibson.
11.  In his first UCLA game, he led the Bruins to a 20-17 underdog win over Nebraska, snapping the two-time defending national champion's 32-game winning streak.
12.  He has done more than 20 Coors beer commercials in the early 1980s, early in his career, and is known for being the face of Coors beer.
13.  He has an abducted left knee from his football career, and has also broken his shoulder twice, during the filming of the movie "Summer School" and while filming a Coors beer commercial. He once broke his collarbone during a spring practice football scrimmage in 1973, at UCLA.
14.  His first paid acting gig was in an episode of "Ozzie's Girls," in which he played the role of a gorilla. The show's titular star and producer, Ozzie Nelson was his sister Kristin's in-law.
15.  One of his trademark qualities is the silver hair and blue eyes. He is also known to wear shirts that were sent by his die-hard fans, and is said to cherish them.
16.  Thomas Mark Harmon was born on September 2, 1951, to Tom Harmon and Elyse Knox, in Burbank, California. He is the youngest of three children.
17.  His father was a Heisman Trophy winning football player and broadcaster, while his mother was an actress and artist. His mother passed away on February 15, 2012, at the age of 94.
18.  His maternal grandparents were from Vienna, Austria, while his father was of three-quarters Irish ancestry, with the rest being French and German. The family surname was reportedly Hermann, which was changed to Harmon several generations back.
19.  He has a big passion for running and reportedly ran 45 miles a week when he was younger, which went over to 60 to 70 miles a week, after finishing college.
20.  He reportedly loves dogs and had an Australian shepherd, a golden retriever, and a bearded collie, named Ryan. He also had a cat named Arnold.
21.  At the age of 16, his after-school job was to deliver flowers. Once he found a dozen roses addressed to a girl, who his friend was dating very seriously. However, the flowers were not from his friend, so he threw away the card in the roses and substituted one with his friend's name on it.
22.  Before making it big, he tried his hand at carpentry, and was also successful in it. The carpentry and wooden boat-building interest and skills of Leroy Jethro Gibbs, the character he plays on "NCIS," are actually his real truth.
23.  In the initial days of his career, he worked as a lifeguard as a summer job at Laguna Beach, California. His parents as well as his sister's in-laws own beach houses at Laguna Beach, California.
24.  He also had another job, in which he was working with Mike Walden as the color man on tape-delayed UCLA telecasts on KTLA.
25.  Harmon was inducted into the inaugural class of the Pierce College Athletic Hall of Fame in the year 2010.
26.  He once shared that during this stage of his life, his father would wake up really early so he could run for at least an hour on the beach, before reporting for work.
27.  He met actress Cristina Raines while working on the 1978 miniseries "Centennial" and started dating her in the early 1980. The relationship lasted for around four years.
28.  He met actress Pam Dawber on March 21, 1986, and started dating her. The duo married exactly a year later on March 21, 1987, and has two sons - Sean Thomas Harmon and Ty Christian Harmon. His elder son Sean was the one who played the role of young Gibbs in five "NCIS" episodes.
29.  He filed for custody of his nephew Sam, son of his sister Kristin Nelson, on the grounds that his sister was incapable of good parenting, with the psychiatrist testifying that the boy depicted his mother as a dragon, in the year 1987. It was later reported that he dropped the custody bid.
30.  He is said to have started a production company called Wings Productions to produce "NCIS: New Orleans," in the year 2014.
31.  Mark Harmon Net Worth: $90 Million