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Perhaps more famous for her physical gifts than for her talent, Carmen Electra managed to parlay a stint as an MTV game show hostess into a career as a TV and movie actress. Born Tara Leigh Patrick and raised in Ohio, Electra left her performing arts high school with plans to become a singer. After a failed album for Prince's Paisley Park label in the early 1990s, however, Electra shifted direction. Along with her first Playboy spread, the aspiring entertainer scored her career breakthrough when she replaced Jenny McCarthy as the co-host of MTV's highly rated dating game Singled Out in 1996. After the show went off the air, Electra successfully stepped in for another buxom TV blonde when she took over lifeguarding duties from Pamela Anderson on the syndicated hit Baywatch from 1997 to 1998. She moved to features with a bit part in the comedy Good Burger (1997) and larger roles in indie movies Starf*cker (1998), The Chosen One: The Legend of the Raven (1998), and Starstruck (1999). It was Electra's infamous several-day marriage to flamboyant basketball star Dennis Rodman in 1998, however, that further augmented her celebrity. Keeping her assets and tabloid fame in humorous perspective, Electra followed her role as what else?, The Female in the mockumentary The Mating Habits of Earthbound Humans (1999) with a self-parodic turn as the bodacious first victim in the hit horror send-up Scary Movie (2000). -- Lucia Bozzola |
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