The MVP of NCIS

The quirky ensemble from NCIS is on a hot streak thanks to cast quarterback Mark Harmon

- MARY MURPHY

MARK HARMON GOT over himself long ago. If there's a line of dialogue that he thinks would be better for another actor, he rings up the boss. “No other actor I know gives away lines," says Donald P. Bellisario, the Hollywood (and U.S. Marines) veteran behind NCIS, JAG and Magnum, P...

"For Mark, it's fine." Maybe a team-first attitude is in Harmon's DNA. After all, Harmon, 53, was a starting quarterback at UCLA, following in a trail of athletic achievement blazed by his father, Tom, who in 1940 was the University of Michigan's first Heisman Trophy winner. On NCIS, Harmon is Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, a character not unlike the actor who plays him.“[Harmon's] solid, he's got a lot of integrity and he's a jock," says Bellisario.