JACK McGee knows a thing or two about life imitating art.

McGee is the youngest of eight kids, raised in a three-bedroom home in the South Bronx. He says he always had a flair for performing, but when the opportunity to become a New York City firefighter arose in 1977 he could not pass it up.

Those, of course, were busy days and nights, the “war years,” as they have often been called by veterans such as McGee, as well as two of his brothers who were also on the job.

Ten years later, however, McGee could no longer ignore the acting itch. He hung up his FDNY gear and headed west to L.A. in 1987.

“It was a pretty ballsy thing to do when I think about it now,” McGee says with an infectious laugh. “But I never questioned it at the time.” 

Now, McGee has stumbled upon a role he literally seems to have been born to play.

Later this month, on July 21, McGee begins a run on Rescue Me, the FX network TV show starring Denis Leary, which revolves around life in a post-September 11 firehouse.

It’s the latest notch in an impressive career for McGee. His TV credits include ER, The Practice, Malcolm in the Middle, The X-Files, Seinfeld and NYPD Blue. He’s also made movie appearances in Backdraft, Basic Instinct, Miracle on 34th Street, Thirteen Days, and Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde. 

Recently, McGee hosted a screening of Rescue Me in a very special place, the firehouse located at 48th Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan, the “Pride of Midtown” which houses Engine 54, Ladder Four and Battalion Nine. The house lost 15 men on September 11.

“There were all these guys crowded in the room,” McGee says. “By the end (of Rescue Me) three of the guys were crying.” 

McGee says Rescue Me makes a concerted effort to look at the long-tern trauma inflicted by the horrors of September 11, as well as the complicated dynamics of a firehouse. These men are heroes, he says, but they are also human, meaning they can be as flawed as anyone else.

“They can come off like a bunch of housewives sometimes,” McGee says.

Indeed, McGee freely acknowledges that the depiction of firefighters in Rescue Me is not always flattering.

That can be somewhat controversial these days. After all, for months after September 11, firefighters were seen as saints in the eyes of the world. 

But unflattering news followed. There were firefighters who married September 11 widows, the New Year’s Eve brawl at a Staten Island house, and a slew of drunk driving episodes.

McGee, however, believes firefighters, more than most viewers, will be able to appreciate the level of complexity in Rescue Me. Some, he adds, may even recognize their own flaws in some of the characters, and might even be encouraged to seek help with whatever problems they may still be facing.

Perhaps most importantly, McGee says he can use his own experiences to bring a deeper kind of sympathy and understanding to Rescue Me.

“A lot of these guys are still angry,” notes McGee, whose voice still shakes when he talks about September 11.

He watched the news coverage on TV in California. When he grasped the enormity of the loss, all he could think was, “How are these guys ever going to get over that?”

This was not just the concern of a onetime firefighter, whose native city was under attack. McGee still has many friends and family members on the job, including relatives Larry and Danny McGee, both of whom work out of Engine 66 in Coop City in the Bronx.

In Rescue Me, McGee plays a “good chief,” Chief Jerry Riley, opposite Leary’s Tommy Kelly. On screen and off, Riley and McGee bring a deep Irish American touch to Rescue Me.

“He’s great,” McGee says of Leary, who is well known for his devotion to Irish as well as firefighter causes. “He’s complex, sarcastic as all hell and a damn good actor.”

McGee’s role was initially meant to go to actor Larry Clarke, a friend of Leary’s. But Clarke landed a role in the Boston Irish sitcom It’s All Relative. So McGee lobbied hard for the role and nailed it.

Who’d have known all this would result from a job McGee first eyed, over two decades ago, for the most practical of reasons.

“I think what I saw initially in the Fire Department were flexible hours,” McGee says with a laugh. “It wound up being the greatest job in the world.)

(Contact Sidewalks at tomdeignan@earthlink.net)