Gary Noesner jokes: He knows the story of his life would be better if he’d had a troubled, challenging childhood to overcome before he became a top FBI hostage negotiator. That’s perhaps pertinent now, as actor Michael Shannon readies to play Noesner in a TV miniseries called “Waco,” about the deadly 1993 standoff between federal agents and cult leader David Koresh at the Branch Davidian compound in Texas. But, unless the TV people come up with a fictional back story for him, his early life was, he says, pretty blissful. read more