His own life is the stuff of Hollywood screenplays. Randy Travis (born Randy Traywick) was a teenage North Carolina hell-raiser, drinking, fighting, doing drugs and committing petty crimes on a path pointed straight toward prison until music turned his life around. The rebel ninth-grade dropout "found himself" in the spotlight of a Charlotte, North Carolina nightclub. With the help and direction of the club's owner, Lib Hatcher, Randy Travis underwent a startling transformation.

He purified his mind, turning his back on substance abuse and focusing on a pure musical vision. At the time, Nashville was deep in its "Urban Cowboy," pop-country phase. Randy was intent on bringing back fiddles, steel guitars and honky-tonk lyrics. He recorded for a tiny record label and in classic country fashion drove from radio station to radio station throughout the South.

After five years of paying dues in the North Carolina club, he and manager Lib Hatcher decided they were ready for Nashville. With little more than dreams and determination, they moved to Music City in 1981. At the time, no one on Music Row could hear the possibilities in his subtly shaded, warm, backwoods baritone ­ Randy was turned down by every record label in town.

Lib took a job managing a nightclub called The Nashville Palace. Randy became the joint's dishwasher and short-order cook. Occasionally, he'd wipe the hamburger grease off on his apron and emerge from the kitchen to sing on stage. Inevitably, the hard-core country patrons went wild when he did.

In 1985, after the release of Randy's debut single, "On The Other Hand," Warner Bros. Records took a chance and released Randy's second single "1982" to radio during Christmas time. The response from country radio listeners was volcanic. George Jones, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, the Grand Ole Opry cast and the rest of country's classic stylists voiced their support, for they had found a man to "carry the torch" into the future.

In 1994 he took a year and a half off the road to launch his film career with a variety of roles. Some of them include his appearance with Rob Lowe and Bill Paxton in Frank and Jesse; with Bruce Dern in Dead Man's Revenge; with Ben Johnson and Mickey Rooney in The Legend of O.B. Taggart; and with Steven Seagal in Fire Down Below. He has been a guest star on such top-rated TV dramas as Matlock and Touched By An Angel. He was featured in Aaron Spelling's mini-series Texas.