‘Saving Grace’ Star’s Secret Past: `I Was An Arm Wrestling Hustler’

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LOS ANGELES (TNA) – Actor Kenneth Johnson is wrestling with a shocking secret: He’s a former arm-wrestling hustler.

Johnson, who is best known for his role as Detective Curtis “Lemonhead” Lemansky on “The Shield,” admits that before he became an actor, he used to earn money by hustling people in bars through arm wrestling.

“I’d go into a bar, challenge people to a match and lose early on,” he said recently during a break on his newest project, the TNT crime drama “Saving Grace.” “Then after other people got into matches and the stakes got higher, I’d jump back into the competition.

“There would be lots of bets and when I’d win, I’d get a bunch of money, but there would be a lot of angry people. I had to quit, because I was in one too many barroom brawls.”

Johnson, who once was ranked the No. 2 amateur arm wrestler in America, has left those days behind him, but admits once an arm wrestler always an arm wrestler.

“On ‘The Shield,’ I used to challenge people all the time,” he laughed. “We get these big 280-pound ex-football players and I’d make bets with them.” He says if his opponent can last more than 1.5 seconds, he pays out $100, but challengers who are defeated in half that time must shell out the Benjamins instead.

So far, Johnson hasn’t lost once, even though he’s getting a lot of new opportunities for sucker bets on “Saving Grace,” where he plays Hamilton Dewey, a detective who works with series star Holly Hunter during the day and sleeps with her at night.

 It’s an experience he relishes for two reasons: The character and series are compelling to him, and he enjoys being naked with his Oscar-winning co-star.

“Being a romantic leading man means there are a lot of scenes in tubs, showers and beds,” Johnson said. “When you’re wearing nothing on set, you have to trust each other. Doing love scenes when you’re nude is difficult. However, the crime scenes when we’re dealing with child molesters can be emotionally hard.”

Johnson says the character has been more of a surprise than he expected.

“I did my own research on the character before shooting even started,” Johnson said. “But as the season grew, the relationship between mine and Holly’s characters developed conflicts I didn’t expect.

“Plus, I found out my character had a brother in Iraq, another that was gay and another who sings lead in a country band. I’ll bet my characters’ parents lived in a trailer park somewhere.”

Although Johnson has played detectives on “The Shield” and “Saving Grace,” he doesn’t believe he’s being typecast, especially since he spent three months on “Cold Case” playing a drug user who faked his own death.

Another reason why he doesn’t see himself relegated strictly to cop roles is because Johnson sees “Saving Grace” as more than a police drama.

“When I first read the script, it seemed like the Coen brothers, and then I could hear Holly’s voice throughout so I knew it would be good,” Johnson said.

Still, he won’t know the full impact of the series until he gets a reaction from real-life cops, who have been a big part of his fan base since his days on “The Shield.”

“Cops really got into ‘The Shield,’” he said. “They would get emotionally caught up in it and sit down at the station house the next morning and rerun the episodes.”

Johnson doesn’t know if “Saving Grace” will get the same response, but he figures real-life police officers won’t be disappointed with the attempts at accuracy.

“The show takes place in Oklahoma City and we really tried to get the technical business of being a cop there down. A cop in Oklahoma might arrest someone differently than one in L.A., so we all went down there for a week to observe how they do things.”

“Saving Grace” airs Mondays on TNT.