Investigating Gary Dourdan

I might have an active imagination or just have spent too many hours watching CSI. But it's not long before Dubai's Cavalli Club became the new setting for my very own episode of the show.

Patiently waiting the arrival of CSI stalwart Gary Dourdan, the cleaners around me are suddenly forensic officers searching for vital clues while criminologists (bar staff stocking the fridges) study DNA samples behind.

The fashionably late arrival of top analyst Warrick Brown only fuelled my little game.

With his trademark afro hair, Dourdan nabbed the part on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation when the show was conceived in 2000 and only left last year to pursue other avenues.

The 42-year-old tells tabloid! why music is his new love, his plans to rival National Geographic and living in what he can only describe as "Hollyweird".

"It's like a battle ground for people with insecurities," he said leaning forward trying to emphasise his point. "That many egos and issues in such a small area, it's not surprising, but still, it's a difficult place to be sometimes."

Born in Philadelphia, it was music which first captured Dourdan's creative side. The son of a agent for jazz musicians, one of his first jobs was as a doorman at a recording studio where he started to mix with artists in the music world.

"I had some hard decisions to make," he said. "I played in a band in New York City, but I left to take the acting roles. My love was music, but the acting paid. I could earn in a week what I could take home as a musician and I went for it."

Giving up eating from tuna cans, his first break came when Debbie Allen snapped him up for a role on A Different World and it wasn't long before he was filming for Alien Resurrection along side Sigourney Weaver and Winona Ryder.

"I learnt a lot from acting, but as an actor you are powerless," he said. "The director, writer and producer have the final say and you obey. In many ways it put me in a bad place as my creative energy had no where to go."

Something Dourdan says is the main reason he went off the rails, eventually culminating in his arrest in LA last year for possession of drugs. In the same year Dourdan did not renew his contract with CSI bosses.

"Music is a better outlet," he went on. "I express myself and feel more complete."

A good job then it's a career in music, with a spot of documentary filmmaking on the side that Dourdan is now pursuing.

"I am working on a documentary which features real people around the world," he said. "National Geographic films animals in the wild — why can't we do it for humans too? There are plenty of stories out there which should be told."

As my mind wanders from my lab set to the open spaces of a savannah, I blame the animal skin-themed décor of the club.

It couldn't possibly be that I watch too much television.

See him in action!

Dourdan will play with his five-piece band at the Fairmont's Cavalli Club tomorrow for Roberto Cavalli's Halloween party. Guests should expect acid jazz and funk rock from 11pm. Phone 04-3325555 for details.