Born: Thomas Michael Reilly
On: June 18th 1959 in Fort Reilly Kansas:
Family: Father owned a trucking company his mother was a nurse, two younger sisters, although born in Kansas Tom was raised in New Jersey and attended Monclair State College (now Montclair University) where he had aspirations of becoming a pro footballer, But thanks to his good looks was soon snapped up by a New York model agency where he did shoots for both Pierre Cardin and Calvin klein.

As we 'CHiPs' fans are aware Tom wasn't actually the first choice for the role
of Bobby 'Hot-dog' Nelson that honour went to Baby Blue eyes Bruce Penhall, who was first approached to play the part after the departure of Larry Wilcox
but due to Speedway commitments was unable to take up the role at that time, So the producers were forced to hold auditions where Tom was handpicked by
Erik Estrada himself who had been impressed by Tom playing Rick Nichols in
season 5 episode 'Force Seven'.

Unfortunately for Tom the fairytale was not to last by the end of 1982 due to an incident involving police where Tom was arrested for allegedly possessing drugs which almost resulted in the show being cancelled, relations between him and his co-stars (mainly Erik Estrada) had completely broken down and his part was cut to little more than a background role,with Bruce Penhall taking over as Eriks partner Bruce Nelson!


A sad tale indeed when one mistake puts paid to an otherwise promising career, fortunately for the Tom Reilly fans he never gave up and has made the odd guest appearance in shows like Married with Children and eighties American show Just Men, and a few movies including Valley of The Dolls, Mirror Images and Slaughterhouse Rock, he is still an actor and was last known to be treading the boards in a play in L.A where he lives with his girlfriend.

More about Tom Reilly on imdb