Linden Ashby

Ashby was born in Atlantic Beach, Florida, the son of Eleanor (Johnson), a civic organizer, and Clarence Linden Garnett Ashby Jr., a pharmaceuticals manufacturer. Ashby graduated from The Bolles School, a private school located in Jacksonville, Florida. He attended Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, but dropped out his junior year to pursue an acting career. Ashby studied acting at Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City.

Ashby's first role on television, in 1985, was on the ABC soap opera Loving, where he was the second actor to play the role of Curtis Alden. Soon after, he was cast as Lance Reventlow, the only son of Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton (played by Farrah Fawcett) in the Golden Globe-winning miniseries Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story. Drawing on his martial arts background, Ashby portrayed Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat, the 1995 film adaptation of the video game of the same name; the film became a cult classic. He would later return to voice Johnny Cage in the Mortal Kombat 11 video game. In the second quarter of 1997, Ashby starred in the short-lived ABC drama Spy Game. Later that year, he joined the main cast of Melrose Place as Brett Cooper, a role he had until the start of the seventh season in late 1998. He first appeared on the show in the first season in 1993 as Jo Reynolds's estranged husband Charles, in the episodes "Single White Sister" and "Peanut Butter and Jealousy". He was in the movie Wyatt Earp where he played Morgan Earp, Wyatt Earp's (Kevin Costner) younger brother. He played Cameron Kirsten on the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless from 2003 to 2004. In 2007, Ashby appeared as Chase, a cowboy and ex-cop survivor in Resident Evil: Extinction, the third installment of the Resident Evil film series. In the following year, he was cast in the 2008 remake of Prom Night. He also began playing the role of Paul Hollingsworth on Days of Our Lives in March 2008. In 2011, Ashby started portraying Noah Stilinski, Beacon Hills' sheriff and father to Stiles, on MTV's Teen Wolf series. He was in the show for six seasons until it ended in 2017. For his portrayal of Sheriff Stilinski in the sixth season, he received a nomination for Best Supporting Actor on a Television Series at the 43rd Saturn Awards. He also had a brief role in the Marvel Studios' Iron Man 3 in 2013. In September 2021, it was announced that a reunion film for Teen Wolf had been ordered by Paramount+, with Jeff Davis returning as a screenwriter and executive producer of the film. The majority of the original cast members, including Ashby, were set to reprise their roles. The film was released on January 26, 2023. Ashby also appeared in the 2022 Netflix movie Purple Hearts as Jacob Morrow Sr. In May 2023, Ashby reprised his role as Cameron on The Young and the Restless. After a month, Ashby departed from the series when Cameron was killed off in an episode that aired on June 16. The next year, Ashby was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Performer in a Drama Series for his role as Cameron. On July 30, 2024, it was announced that Ashby would reprise his role again.

Ashby is married to actress Susan Walters. The couple met on the set of Loving in 1983, where she was a regular and he was filming a guest appearance. (He would later become a regular cast member in 1985.) They have two daughters, born in 1991 and 1992. Linden began boxing at an early age and was an amateur boxer before studying Karate in his twenties. In karate, he holds a blue belt. Linden has admitted to previously suffering panic attacks before auditions which threatened to shorten his career.