By Luaine Lee
MCT NEWS SERVICE

May 19, 2008

He is a husband in real life, but portraying the macho spouse in “Rules of Engagement” is still a broad leap for actor Patrick Warburton. It's one giant step from the super heroics of “The Tick,” the TV backbiting of “Less Than Perfect,” or the frustrated courtship of Elaine on “Seinfeld.”

DETAILS “Rules of Engagement” Season finale of the relationship comedy When: 9:30 tonight Where: KFMB/Channel 8

“There's a lot of Jeff where he's blinded by testosterone,” Warburton says during a break on the set of the CBS show, which ends its season tonight and will return in the fall.

“There are guys who are amiable and fun who are blinded by testosterone. And then there are guys who are incarcerated because they're blinded by testosterone. When it comes down to the soul, Jeff has a good soul.”

Warburton, too, has a good soul, though it took some pre-adolescent panic to get that way. This son of a surgeon and a former actress remembers, “I was tortured growing up in a very Catholic family and such an emphasis on good and evil. Part of it as a kid, (you wonder) are you going to hell or not? Or do you even believe in God? I remember lying awake in bed at night at the age of 12 with all kinds of ridiculous anxieties in my head.

“Their parents and the kind of upbringing my folks had, times were different,” he shrugs his expansive shoulders. “I don't blame them for it, but at the same time, I say it's not healthy. It's not a healthy way. It was hard on some of us I used to climb down the balcony of our house when I was 12 or 13 years old at 2 o'clock in the morning because I couldn't sleep. I'd just wander around the block thinking, 'What the hell is going on?' It was the roughest time in my life, but eventually I got it together in my head.”

TONIGHT'S SEASON FINALES “Big Bang Theory,” 8 p.m., KFMB/Channel 8 “Bones,” 8 p.m., XETV/Channel 6 “Gossip Girl,” 8 p.m., KSWB/Channel 69 “How I Met Your Mother,” 8:30 p.m., KFMB/Channel 8 “House,” 9 p.m., XETV/Channel 6 “Two and a Half Men,” 9 p.m., KFMB/Channel 8 “One Tree Hill,” 9 p.m., KSWB/Channel 69 “Rules of Engagement,” 9:30 p.m., KFMB/Channel 8 “CSI: Miami,” 10 p.m., KFMB/Channel 8

Getting it together wasn't easy. Until he was 16, he attended an all-boys college prep school. “I wasn't a great student, had to stay in the after-school reading program with Sister Helen,” he sighs.

It was in the third grade when he experienced his first sweet taste of acting and a sense of himself. “I played Free Speech in the school production for Thanksgiving. Being that I was almost legally blind, I guess they had very thick glasses on me by the time I was 3 years old, and I was the smallest kid in school. And the Free Speech role went pretty good for me. I had upperclassmen – I'm talking sixth-and seventh-graders – going, 'Hey, good job up there.' That's the first time in my life I felt a sense of accomplishment.”

He escaped the prep school his junior year in high school. “I went to a very cliquey high school, Newport Harbor High School. I used to ride my 10-speed in (seven miles) from Huntington Beach. The other kids are driving Porsches. But I started feeling like more of a human being. It didn't matter, I was still terminally shy, but I felt better about myself.”

He still suffers vision problems and usually wears contact lenses and glasses.

Though he had the physique of a football player, Warburton was forbidden to play football in college by his father, so he became a member of the rowing team at Orange Coast College. “I used to fall asleep in class. I think that had to do with rowing crew in the morning because you'd row boats for two hours and fall asleep in class.”

He considered a marine science major, but quit school after a year and a half and vowed to become an actor.

Managing $250 a month rent and living with five other people in one of the oldest houses in downtown L.A., Warburton began to snag commercials to make ends meet. He eventually worked his way up to features, TV comedy and voice-overs.

His wife of 17 years, Cathy, and he have four children, 15, 13, 9 and 7. While he thinks he married too young, he says the secret to making it work is “dedication, tenacity, love, compassion, understanding and kids. Children, sometimes I wonder how – especially in this industry – people can make it when they don't have kids because your kids are the most precious thing to you, or should be. They can be the glue that holds a marriage together.”

Warburton, 43, may have come to terms with his strict upbringing, but he has not entirely escaped. “My mother does think I'm going to hell because I'm on 'Family Guy,' ” he says. (He plays the paraplegic police officer Joe Swanson.)

“The show is an equal-opportunity offender. It does make me laugh, but it crosses the line and there are times when I turn it off because I don't care for the blasphemous stuff. It's OK to have fun with God. God with long hair and beard up in heaven, that's OK. But there are times they push it too far where it really is offensive to a Christian or Catholic or Jew. They hit everybody. I hope God doesn't send me to hell for doing a voice on this cartoon. But if he did, I might understand it.”

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