Editor’s note: Each summer, the networks parade their fall shows for the nation’s television critics in Los Angeles.

Lana Turner was discovered while sitting at a soda fountain, according to Hollywood lore, although this legend is dismissed as a show business fable by most.

Skyler Gisondo, who was born and spent the first 6 1/2 years of his young life in Palm Beach County, has almost as improbable a tale. But his is true. Skyler, who turned 11 last week, was on vacation at a skating rink in Burbank when a stranger told his mother, Stacey, that her son had a great face that belonged on the screen. She took the compliment as worthwhile advice.

The family stay was scheduled to be brief while Skyler’s dad, Ron, an ocean engineer, worked on a business project. Nonetheless, Stacey got the names of some agents and submitted pictures of her son. An agent was as impressed as the stranger at the skating rink. Within three days, Skyler was hired for a Pizza Hut commercial. In less than a week, he had two other assignments.

One job kept leading to another. When Ron finally finished his work and was ready to take Skyler and his two older sisters home, Stacey’s reaction was, “Are you crazy?” she said with a smile. Ron conceded that maybe father didn’t know best. It turned out to be an inspired decision.

The family relocated from their Hypoluxo Island home – it’s for sale, Stacey said, in case anyone is interested – and Skyler has stayed busier than Ryan Seacrest. His movie credits include about a half-dozen films and his TV work is even more extensive: guest shots on ER, House, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Cold Case, Monk and Everybody Loves Raymond, to name just a few. Last Tuesday he began his first regular role in a series, the TBS comedy The Bill Engvall Show.

Skyler plays one of the star’s three children in the sitcom, airing at 9 p.m. Tuesdays, about a family counselor who can’t control his own family.

Skyler, who appeared on the press tour to promote the show, has taken it all in stride. His show business hero is Adam Sandler. Happy Gilmore is his favorite movie, he says. (Forbidden fruit might be a factor. Stacey thought the picture was too mature for her son, Skyler said. So he talked his grandfather into letting him see it.)

Skyler finally got to meet Sandler at a Hollywood awards ceremony but was hardly starstruck. “I gave him a thumbs up,” Skyler said. “But when he came over to talk to me, I told him, ‘You’re cursing too much.’ “

Even at such a tender age, it’s obvious there’s a pretty good mind behind that beautiful face.

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Read Tom Jicha’s dispatches from the network summer press tour at