He plays a crime scene investigator solving the mysteries surrounding deaths on CSI (Wednesdays at 9:30pm on TV3), but in real life there is one mystery that actor Gary Dourdan just can't seem to figure out.

The actor, who plays investigator Warrick Brown, has his own murder mystery to solve. His brother Darryl was found dead in suspicious circumstances 28 years ago when Dourdan was a six-year-old and no one was ever charged with his murder.

Darryl, then 23, was working as a DJ for a radio station in the family's hometown of Philadelphia. Described by Dourdan as an 'adventurer', Darryl took time off to research the French lineage on their father's side of the family.

His journey took him through the Cayman Islands and on to Haiti where, police say, just a few days after arriving on the island he was pushed to his death from a motel balcony high on a cliff.

"The Haitian authorities came up blank, finding no motive or suspects," says Dourdan. "It was a mysterious event and we still don't have any answers, even three decades later."

Dourdan admits he hero-worshipped his older brother and his childhood ambition was to follow in Darryl's path.

Darryl had taught Dourdan how to play the flute and how to DJ and later after his death, Dourdan began DJ-ing at various Philadelphia clubs. Along with his acting work he now produces jazz musicians for a European label at the recording studio at his home in California.

"I was really connected to my brother," says Dourdan. "So everything I do now, be it my acting or my music, is always in honour of him."

Dourdan says he is making plans to visit Haiti to search for clues to his brother's murder, though he doesn't hold out much hope of finding anything.

"It has been so many years, I think I will be hard pressed to find anyone to actually talk to about it," he says. "It's like the mafia down there - if somebody talks they wind up dead. But now that I am playing an investigator on TV, I am more aware of avenues for finding things out that I probably wasn't aware of before."

Dourdan, who was always interested in acting, graduated from a local performing arts school, but it was a few years before he got any work.

Instead of going on to college or making the rounds of casting directors, he entered what he calls his 'reckless period', abusing alcohol and drugs, drifting around the country and working in restaurants to pay his bills.

Dourdan says he knew his life was out of control when he began getting fired from his jobs for turning up late and his weight began to drop.

His life turn-about occurred one terrifying night when he was held up at gun point.

"The guy was on drugs, so I gave him what he wanted - $30 and some jewellery," says Dourdan. "After that incident all I could think about was how either I was going to turn out like that, or what having another son killed would have done to my parents."

Deciding to make a concerted effort to turn his life around, Dourdan began focusing on his acting for the first time since school and began to get small parts in regional theatre shows.

His big break came when he met A Different World director, Debbie Allen, while holidaying in Paris and she decided to cast him as a con man in the show.

His career since then has been extremely varied - a fact which Dourdan is extremely proud of.

"One thing I'm trying to do with my career and with my craft is to blur the lines between what people think African-Americans should play and what I am doing," he says. "I'm not into fads and fashions and trying to follow things. I realise that for middle America, my presence as an investigator on CSI is something of a shock, but that is part of my aim."

Dourdan admits that when he got the part on CSI, he never expected the show to be such a success.

"We didn?t have any money behind us and the concept was so different to anything that had been done before that I wasn't sure that it would catch on," he says. "But we ended up becoming more of a hit than anyone anticipated."

Despite the gruelling hours that Dourdan spends on the CSI set he says he is loving the experience.

"I love the people I work with and learning new things every day," he says. "I'm enjoying every minute."

CSI screens Wednesdays at 9.30pm on TV3.