HEADLINE: A match made in Hollywood
BYLINE: KATE de BRITO

You'll just have to take Julian McMahon's word for it when he says his relationship with Baywatch bunny Brooke Burns is not a publicity stunt. Forget that Burns was quoted in an interview with New Idea this month saying the affair had begun as a passionless exercise in public relations.
Forget that McMahon has courted publicity in the past with the verve of a sailor on shore leave.
And definitely forget that if anyone could benefit from a spot of publicity it would be Julian McMahon, whose acting tenure in Hollywood could hardly be considered stable. "A publicity stunt means you set it up to get publicity; maybe it's two people who've done a movie together or something and you send them out together to get publicity," says McMahon, in a lesson in Hollywood etiquette. "This wasn't that particular case.
"We had the same publicist and I got bored of going to all those things [premieres and openings] on my own and so did she at the time and our publicist asked if we'd like to go together."
Romantics will be delighted to know that what began as such an un-cynical -- if unlikely -- exercise in match-making by the pair's publicist was a complete success. McMahon, 30, and Burns, 22, are now genuinely "in love".
In fact, life's just about perfect for Australia's answer to J.F.K. Jnr, who recently returned to Los Angeles after a six-week holiday in Sydney. Back at home in the Hollywood hills McMahon got the welcome news that Profiler, the series in which he plays FBI Detective John Grant, has been re-signed by US network NBC for a fourth season.
Although McMahon denies having a quiver of apprehension about what would come next had Profiler not been renewed, it's clear he's relishing spending his hiatus (until he begins pre-production in August) on the couch watching sport rather than pounding the pavement looking for a new job.
"I have no idea [what I'd do]; there's a lot of stuff out there," he says. "I guess I'd go back to auditioning again. Being on a TV show that's going into its fourth season holds you in good stead when you're going to meetings with directors and things like that."
But even a role in a successful series and a chiselled jaw do not automatically translate into work. It took McMahon a dozen auditions to convince the producers of Profiler that he was the man to play Grant, despite having appeared for two years in the US daytime soapie Another World.
McMahon shrugs off job concerns and when pressed is guarded about his aspirations, despite reports that he has been reading for movie parts in the US.
He says: "It comes down to who I'd like to work with and what kind of production company, and what becomes available. I'm not in a position where I can just turn around and say I want to do movies and I'll become a movie star, because that's not where I'm at."
The son of former prime minister Sir William McMahon and socialite Lady Sonia, McMahon began climbing the stepladder to stardom when he ditched a business degree at Wollongong University to take up modelling in 1987.
His infamous strip in a Levis advertisement led to acting and a role in the short-lived Australian soap The Power, The Passion, followed by a more substantial part in Home And Away where he met his future wife Dannii Minogue.
But the lapping waves of Summer Bay could only hold McMahon for so long and he headed to Britain to perform in Home And Away -- The Musical. That was followed by a role in the movie Exchange Lifeguards. Then in 1995 his big break came in Another World as gardener Ian Rain.
While his resume speaks for itself, the continuing fascination with McMahon's private life has been one of the main irons stoking his career.
Back in the early '90s he and popster Minogue were two of the undisputed favourites of the women's magazines. The fan frenzy peaked in 1994 with their Melbourne marriage and a reported $100,000 for the magazine rights. The publicity worked so well that five years on, McMahon is still better known for his failed marriage than his 10-year acting career.
Does it bother him that magazine covers have arguably been his biggest career highlight so far? "There's no point getting tired of it because it's just going to continue. I think its a waste of energy to get annoyed or frustrated. It's part and parcel of what you do."
McMahon has no plans to come home permanently and is happy working on Profiler, moulding his often one-dimensional character of FBI loner John Grant.
"Obviously I'd prefer more character to my character, but it's not that kind of show," he says. "We develop a different kind of story line or bad guy each episode. It's more about the show itself than the characters in it."