An Actor Who Isn’t Desperate for Glitz

At first I thought it might be a misprint, so I went back to the top of Ruth Ryon’s “Hot Property” column, one of my favorite features in The Times.

It started out routinely enough. The first item said Jackie Chan was offering up his 7,600-square-foot French-style Beverly Hills estate for $6.7 million. The extras include a circular motor court, gym, pool, hand-painted dining room ceiling and temperature-controlled wine closet.

So far, pretty normal by Hollywood standards. It was the next item that stopped me.

James Denton, 42, who plays Teri Hatcher’s plumber and romantic interest on ABC’s hit TV series “Desperate Housewives,” had bought a house for under $800,000.

In Glendale.

Something was off.

First of all, you don’t usually see any “hot property” priced that low. There have been people in Ryon’s column who probably paid $800,000 for a doghouse.

I know $800,000 is nothing to sneeze at. But Denton was just picked by People magazine as one of the sexiest men alive, or sexiest new star or some such thing, and TV Guide had him on the cover in a lusty embrace with Hatcher.

I’m not saying you don’t occasionally see sexy people moving and grooving under the bright lights of Glendale, but it’s not the glitziest burg in greater Los Angeles. Real plumbers buy houses for just under $800,000 in Glendale.

Actors like Denton, who get steady work and end up in magazines and on “Oprah,” don’t settle for Glendale. They buy $2.3-million bungalows in the Hollywood Hills, and six months later they move to a $3.8-million Malibu condo.

So what gives with Denton?

“He’s just a very down-to-earth guy,” said his talent agent, Susan Madore.

Then he’s moving to the right town.

“Sorry I’m late,” Denton said outside Far Niente, a Brand Boulevard restaurant. Actually he was only eight minutes late for our lunch, which means he was 45 minutes early in Westside time.

The restaurant is near the Alex Theatre, where pre-cable TV stars David Birney and Bonnie Franklin are starring in “A Touch of the Poet.”

“Sounds like a touch of ‘The Love Boat,’ ” Denton said.

He apologized for wearing a baseball cap to a restaurant, but he had been snooping around the attic of his new house as he gets ready to make the big move from North Hollywood, where he paid a little more than $200,000 several years ago for a starter house.

“My hair is full of fiberglass,” said the native of Goodlettsville, Tenn., who loved living in the Valley and told his wife there was no way he was going over the hill.

OK, but why Glendale?

It was an accident. Denton was actually looking for a place in Burbank. He and his wife, Erin, have a toddler, with another baby on the way, and they wanted quiet, sensible, safe.

“It’s beautiful up there,” he said of the Verdugo foothills. But the house that fit the bill was in nearby Glendale. His little piece of heaven has three bedrooms and two bathrooms in 1,800 square feet. No temperature-controlled wine closet, but the Dentons think they can survive.

Denton was a regular on the TV show “Philly,” which got dumped after one season. He then landed a lead role on “Threat Matrix.” Behind the scenes, he advised a co-star to live as if his 15 minutes of fame were winding down.

“I just told him not to spend any money,” he said. “Save everything, and assume we’re going to get whacked.”

After 16 episodes, they got whacked.

Now Denton is on a hit show that looks solid for a while, but there’s no guarantee that Teri Hatcher’s character will keep a service contract with the mysterious Roto-Rooter man, who’s now both a lover and a murder suspect.

“It ain’t called ‘Desperate Plumber,’ ” Denton said. “I’m riding the Teri Hatcher train.”

So Denton -- who drives a Honda Civic hybrid, hauls plywood in his 1966 Ford pickup and might be the only TV series regular who mows his own lawn -- couldn’t think of a smarter thing to do than buy in an unpretentious neighborhood.

This proves, of course, that life is unfair.

You’re picked as one of the sexiest men alive, but you’ve got two problems.

One, you’re married.

Two, you’re moving to Glendale.

“I love Glendale,” said Erin, a former actress who said she keeps Mr. Hot Pants from getting too big a head. Erin became a personal trainer when she discovered Hollywood wasn’t looking for smarts, talent and a master’s in fine arts from NYU. Better your resume include a two-minute guest spot on “Seinfeld.”

Glendale is part of a master plan for the Dentons, who are guilty of one Hollywood extravagance: They have a ranch house in Montana, where a little bit of TV money buys a lot of trees.

“In a perfect world,” Denton said, “I’ll get four more years out of ‘Desperate Housewives,’ and then nobody will ever see me again.”

Sure, he said, it’s hard to watch the Oscars as an actor and not fantasize about being up there on stage. But his dream is to make just enough money in Hollywood to raise his family in Montana, where he wants to be a high school history teacher and basketball coach.

That’s assuming they’ll be able to pull themselves away from Glendale.

“I don’t know any actors who live there,” Denton said. “That was part of the attraction.”

*

Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at steve.lopez@latimes.com and read previous columns at latimes.com/lopez.