Jerry verDorn, the 1995 and 1996 winner of the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor, is the longest-running cast member of the CBS daytime drama for his role as attorney Ross Marler.

verDorn attended Moorehead State University in Minnesota planning to be an English teacher. However, he wound up in the theater department, where he says he "developed the seven-year undergraduate program." Actually, one of those years was spent in London, studying at Studio 68, an acting academy founded by Sean Connery and other British actors.

Soon after graduation, verDorn was cast in a New Jersey production of the play, Black Elk Speaks. The show moved to Washington D.C.'s Folger Theater, where he was spotted by a manager who urged him to come to New York City. He did go eventually but first he returned home for a season of summer theater and married his college sweetheart, Beth, on June 4, 1977.

In 1977, he was invited to appear at Rutgers University as a guest artist in a production of Eric Bentley's play, Are You Now or Have You Ever Been? After 11 weeks, the play moved, first to the off-Broadway Promenade Theater, and then three months later, to Broadway. Simultaneously, verDorn understudied George Grizzard in the lead role of Shaw's Man and Superman at Circle in the Square and played matinee performances for three months. GUIDING LIGHT's casting director saw him in the play, and he joined the show as Ross. In addition to his two Emmys, he has been nominated four other times.

In 1982, verDorn and his wife reorganized the Playhouse on the Mall in Paramus, NJ, where their company, Fourstar Productions, presented a season of plays. In November of the same year, verDorn appeared in the play, The Star-Spangled Girl. He also played his GUIDING LIGHT character in the motion picture-for-television The Cradle Will Fall on CBS.

The verDorns live a short drive from New York City with their two sons, Jacob (b. 12/83), and Peter (b.12/85). The blue-eyed actor was born in Sioux Falls, SD, one of four children, but due to his father's job as a salesman, the family relocated often, living in various parts of North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota. His birthdate is November 23.