It's a long way from waiting on tables in a Whyte Avenue joint to a standing offer from CBS to develop projects and a place in history as the most famous film Mountie since Nelson Eddy.
But writer/actor/Due South star Paul Gross is a bona fide home-grown success story.
He jotted down the opening words of his first play while waiting to mess up another order during a stint at a south-side restaurant - the name of which he can no longer recall.
(It's not that I have personal experience with Gross dumping chicken wings in my lap, but he describes himself as "the world's worst waiter.'')
Gross also learned much of what he knows about acting and the theatre during his four years in the fine arts department at the U of A in the early '80s.
Like most of us with a few years under the belt since our university days, Gross remembers his stint at the U of A as "a heady experience.
"Some of it's kind of blurry,'' too, he admitted, over the phone during a recent interview. Gross is back in Alberta tonight to host the Rockie Awards at the Banff Television Festival. (Due South, which appears on neither CBS nor CTV's fall schedules, competes with ER, NYPD Blue and Murder One for best continuing series.)
"Extremely committed (U of A) teachers,'' like Tom Peacocke and Victor Becker, "left a really lasting impression about the nature of the work itself,'' recalled Gross.
"There was no 'you do this for fame and fortune.' And that lasted.''
Although born in Calgary, Gross wasn't raised in Alberta. His father was in the Canadian army and the family lived in Germany, England and Washington, D.C., until Gross finished high school in Toronto. He remembers hearing of the U of A acting school's good reputation while working as a gofer at the Stratford festival box office when he was 16
He was already leaning toward a career as an actor -- any profession that required math was already out.
"Somewhere after long division, I stopped doing math. That cut off the sciences. I decided I probably should try acting.''
When Gross' father left the army and the family settled near Brooks, a return to Alberta made even more sense.
His parents supported his career choice, but agreed that training was a good idea.
In four years at the U of A, Gross remembers the chance to tackle "a broader choice of challenging roles than I've done at any point since.'' As someone who has toured the audition circuit in Hollywood, Gross is struck by how much better trained Canadian actors are than their American counterparts.
Gross recalled doing Shakespeare in the park (A Midsummer Night's Dream) for Northern Light, many impassioned discussions about acting over beers and the beginnings of his writing career.
During his ill-fated stint at a restaurant where business was often slow, Gross started to "doodle scenes. It looked almost like an act. So I just kept going.''
The end result would be Gross' first play, The Deer and the Antelope Play. It won an Alberta Cultural Playwriting Award and was produced locally - and reviewed locally.
"It was a catastrophic review,'' he said. "Which is around the time I stopped reading reviews. I thought, I can't bear this.'' (He continued to write plays and scripts, including the highly regarded Gross Misconduct TV movie directed by Atom Egoyan.)
Better than most Canadian actors, Gross has managed to work on both sides of the border. He is considering directing a Canadian feature film based on one of his own stories.
But he is also heading to Hollywood where parts in big movies may be in the near future.
The Mountie uniform has been retired, but it appears there will be no need for Gross to return to waiting on tables - restaurateurs everywhere can rest easy.