Jesse McCartney Wraps WB TV Show

07/18/2005 2:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
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The series finale of Jesse McCartney's television show Summerland airs on the WB Monday (July 18). In tonight's episode, Jesse's character, surfer boy Bradin Westerly, becomes so upset that he considers quitting surfing altogether after his sponsors intentionally give him a bad-boy image. He also thinks about entering into a relationship with Erika.

Summerland has been cancelled after two seasons on the WB. Fans of the show have protested the cancellation, and have set up an online petition at petitionspot.com/petitions/summerlandcancelled. So far there are almost 10,000 electronic signatures on the petition.

Jesse says his parents met when they were performing in musical theater together, so it's no surprise that he would develop a love of both music and acting. He got his first break when he was nine years old by winning the lead role of Louis in a touring company of the musical The King And I. Jesse says that the play was the first professional job he'd ever auditioned for, and landing the role gave him the confidence to never give up.

"It was my first audition,” McCartney says, “and I had booked it which is rare and probably shouldn't have happened, because then I got back (from the tour) and auditioned for six or seven months and didn't get a thing. You know it was my first professional audition, so I was like, 'Dude, if I can do this, I'm gonna do it all.' My mom took me into the city two or three times a week after school and went on every audition that we could whether it was a Kmart commercial or a film. Eventually by the time I was about 11 I booked the role of Adam Chandler on All My Children."

Jesse's work on the soap opera earned him nominations for the Daytime Emmy Awards in both 2001 and 2002 for Best Performance by a Young Actor in a Television Series.

Jesse continues his Beautiful Soul tour with an appearance at the Dupage County Fair in Wheaton, Illinois, on July 29. He'll be on tour through August and September. Jesse's platinum debut album, Beautiful Soul, remains on the Billboard 200 albums chart at Number 87 after 41 weeks.

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