LOS ANGELES -- After moving here three years ago from Toronto, actor Dean McDermott has the Hollywood thing down pat.

Well, almost.

McDermott, 42, maintains an upbeat temperament while cameras follow him, wife Tori Spelling and their young son and daughter around the house for their reality TV shows, the latest being Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood (he and Tori are also currently creating their newest project, a reality show they'll host called Mr. and Mrs. Makeover).

McDermott's learned how to keep his serious acting gigs up -- he was, after all, critically acclaimed for his roles in Lives of Girls and Women and the hit Canadian TV show, Due South -- and has two new movies being released this year, Always and Forever and Santa Baby 2.

But here's where he's still unable to lose his polite Canadian side: As flocks of paparazzi follow his family's every move, he's actually nice to them.

"It starts in the morning and they follow us all day," McDermott admits. "I know it's part of the life and I accept that."

Instead of screaming at them, a la everybody else, McDermott approaches their cars and says things such as, "We'll be eating lunch, so would you please mind not getting photos of my wife in the middle of chewing," and/or, "I'm taking my children to school, would you please mind not following us there because it will make them afraid."

But what's most unsettling to the lad brought up by a single mother (with his brothers) in Toronto community housing projects is, it seems, the extreme wealth.

McDermott had always done well in his acting career, but when he married the rich and glamorous Spelling, he was instantly in a different league.

"People don't know a lot about me, but we were poor," he said. "Really poor. Like not-enough-food poor."

His usually upbeat voice grows sadly tight as he recalls how his mother, Doreen, suffered trying to make ends meet, with the ends always unravelling because there was never enough money. "I've gotten used to the paparazzi and the cameras, but what's still strange, and I think about this every day, is that I can buy an expensive cut of meat or a pair of leather shoes without thinking twice about it."

Doreen tragically died when McDermott was only 15. Yet he still managed to finish his Grade 12 diploma while working part-time jobs and living where he could.

"She wanted me to finish, and I did," he said.

His one regret is that she didn't live to see his success -- and that he never got a chance to share it with her.

"What I wouldn't give to get her a little house on the beach and see her play with her grandchildren."

BABY SCOOP: Klea Scott, the Ottawa raised co-star of CBC's Intelligence, is in her second trimester and due Jan. 14.

"It's official and it's a boy!" the 40-year-old, who lives in Santa Monica with theatre director husband John Langs, tells Sun Media.

"We've been putting it off because of our careers, but since I didn't want to have a baby with three heads there wasn't much longer to wait," she laughs.

The hard-working actress -- with regular roles on CBS' Brooklyn South and Robbery Homicide Division; Fox TV's Millennium; and film roles in Steven Spielberg's Minority Report and Collateral -- reports she's still going on auditions.

"I'm just looking for guest roles and hoping they need a pregnant woman."

Linda Massarella, a Canadian in Los Angeles, writes about notable Canadians living in L.A. every Sunday.