With his piercing, blue-eyed glint, brawny looks, cocky “tough guy” stance and effortless charisma, TV’s Christopher Meloni drew on his sexy Italian heritage to grab audiences attention, male and female alike, finding breakthrough stardom playing on both sides of the law. Audiences first were taken in by his stunning portrayal of a sexually arresting, sociopathic killer in the gripping prison drama “Oz” (1997) on cable. Although his small screen roots were in 90s situation comedy, the network powers-that-be wisely discovered his power and allure as a dramatic star and quickly handed him his own prime-time crime series, “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (1999), as a not-quite-by-the-book crime detective. This one-two punch of “Oz” and “Law & Order: SVU” put Meloni, who seems to grow sexier with age, on the map and well on top, where he remains today.