JESSE L MARTIN IS STROLLING past a bowling Alley on Manhattan�s midtown West Side when two young men look at him, do an In synch double take, and one begins to shout excitedly, �Hey, you�re my man! My Ally McBeal man! My Law & Order man!�.

�Hey man�, says the other fellow, pulling out a scrap of paper out of his pocket, �I know you have a life, I�m sorry to interrupt you, but you gotta sign an autograph for my girlfriend�. Martin, pulling out a pen, smiles and signs, �Thanks for noticing: Jesse L. Martin�.

A lot of people are noticing Martin these days. The 10th-season premiere of Law & Order was it�s highest rated ever, so millions were introduced to Martin�s �Ed Green is not a predictable guy� says Martin. �There�s not a lot about him that I know, and as (L&O creator/producer) Dick Wolf says, you only get eyedroppers-ful of these peoples lives as the series proceeds�. Wolf himself observes of Martin�s character, �this guy is something of a hothead. . . and he doesn�t perceive himself as having a gambling problem, but that might be open to debate.

Before scoring his new L&O gig, Martin had auditioned for the show numerous times. �It�s like the New York actor thing to do-this is the show everyone wants to guest on. The only time I got offered a role was as a car-radio thief named the Hamster. I needed the money and the job, but I turned down the role because it was so small and I wanted to hold out for something bigger-which didn�t come along for awhile�.

Though Martin couldn�t get arrested on L&O, he was wanted elsewhere. He costarred in the original cast of Rent and landed a recurring role on Ally McBeal as Dr. Greg Butters, the string bean lawyer�s melt able love interest. �Then I heard through the grapevine that Ben Bratt was leaving. I called my agent, got an interview with Dick Wolf, and basically begged him for the role, and I�d read with anyone, do anything�.

Martin was based in L.A. at the time. While earning his keep on Ally, he also appeared last season in a memorable episode of The X-Files - written and directed by David Duchovny - in which he starred as an alien-turned-Negro Baseball League star. �I�d just received development - deal offers from two networks - CBS and Fox - and they would have left me sitting around in L.A., which I don�t really enjoy as a place to live. Those offers helped, though, because they spurred Dick to make up mind about me more quickly�.

Born in Rocky Mountain, VA - �nestled deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I was a country boy who had to lose his accent to make it on the New York stage� - the 30 year old Martin is the son of a truck-driver father and a retired college career counselor mother. His parents divorced when he was young, and Martin moved with his mother to Buffalo where �I was subjected to forced busing. In the fourth grade, I had a teacher who asked me to be in a play, The Golden Goose. I was the pastor, which I associated with a brimstone and fire, Southern Baptist sort of preacher, so that�s the way I played it. None of the white kids there had ever seen anything like that, and everyone was impressed, though it was very funny. I got so much positive feedback, I knew I was on my way to being a performer�.

Martin says his �dream project� is to star in �a feature-film biography of Marvin Gaye�, and the instant he tells you that, you realize he�s got more than a passing resemblance to the Motown soul singer. What�s going on now, thought, is learning �how to cuff a suspect in the most efficient way� and clicking with costar cop-partner Jerry Orbach because their shared experience as musical-theater veterans. �Jerry knows every Broadway tune-we do a lot of singing between takes�.

Hmm-Martin sang in Rent, he sang on Ally, he even sang on The X-Files. So when will he and Orbach belt out a duet on Law & Order? You know, kind of a Cop Rock Thing? Martins laughs. �Believe me, Dick Wolf has already told me: That ain�t.