Rider Strong on AllMovie

Best known to Gen-Y'ers as Shawn Hunter, the resident high-school heartthrob and best friend of teen Cory Matthews (Ben Savage) on the ABC Friday-night sitcom Boy Meets World (1993-2000), Rider Strong was born in San Francisco and entered show business with a portrayal of Gavroche in a local stage production of Les Miserables. He first moved into television work at age 12 as the son of Julie Andrews on the star's eponymous sitcom, Julie (1992), then landed guest-star bits on such programs as Evening Shade, Empty Nest, Davis Rules, and Going Places. World, of course, represented Strong's career breakthrough and secured a major fan base for him (particularly among teenage girls). As the series neared closure in the late '90s, Strong branched out into film roles -- first with a small part in the sentimental Billy Crystal comedy My Giant (1998), then as a horror star in such opuses as Cabin Fever (2002), Borderland (2007), and Cabin Fever 2 (2008).