The moment Clare Wren hit the floor, she knew her golden life had changed.

Wren was one of those kids the world envies. She was a Southern belle, slim and blonde and beautiful. She was a doctor's daughter, preparing to be star gymnast or a dancer. Then a double back-flip went wrong.

"I tore the ligaments and cartilage on my right knee," Wren recalls. "I was incredibly depressed. I'd been performing most of my life."

Then she assemble a life that is different, but still rather golden.

On Young Riders.... Wren gets to stand out. In the midst of a dusty world of macho cowboys, she's the Farrah Fawcett type, surrounded by lace and curls.

She gets the focus one weekend, as Riders eyes long-ago alcoholism.

"I've been around alcoholism, off and on, for my whole life," Wren says. "A lot of the people I have loved have struggled with it."

That has provided one cloud on a life that still glittered on the surface.

Growing up in Texarkana, Wren was an emerging star. At 12 she was at the first live-in gymnastics school in Shreveport, LA. As a high school freshman, she was at the Walnut Hills performing arts school, near Boston.

Then the knee injury changed everything. "I tore it up because I kept trying to compete."

Wren would need a new way to perform. She chose the Southern Methodist University, because it was near her Dallas doctor. Then she focused on theater.

She arrived in Hollywood, mailed out 1,500 letters and has been working consistently. Still, she didn't really catch attention until she was added during the second season of the Riders.

Westerns are often filled with hard-drinking cowboys, but the episode Spirits takes a revisionist view. The drinking problems include a visiting lawman to Wren's character and the young Jesse James.

All are viewed fondly, Wren points out. "They're not bad people. I'm real proud of the fact that we did just that. Usually, they are just viewed as fools or bullies."

The show is filmed in Arizona, leaving many of her city-slicker colleagues complaining about the weather. Wren, however, says she is used to the heat, the horses and the quiet Southern ways.

In real life, her significant other is William Russ [he played Roger on the TYR second season episode Daisy], the actor who first drew fame as a Miami Vice guest star. Their daughter was born in July.

Russ is a soldier's son who spent much of his youth in New Orleans, so Wren says her Southern roots come in handy. "When I talk to his parents on the phone, I can understand every word they're saying."

By Mike Hughes