The US Trends | Carmen Electra | Carmen Electra is an American singer and dancer, glamour model, TV personality and film actress. She rose to fame for her appearances in Playboy magazine, on the game excelled in the MTV Singled Out, on the television series Baywatch, and dancing with the Pussycat Dolls, and has since had roles in the parody films Scary Movie (the fourth film), Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans and Disaster Movie.
Carmen Electra was born Tara Leigh Patrick, April 20, 1972 in Cincinnati, Ohio, daughter of Patricia, a singer, and Harry, a guitarist and entertainer.
She attended Ann Weigel Elementary School and dance, then studied at the Dance Artists dance studio under Gloria J. Simpson, in the hills of the west, a neighborhood of Cincinnati. Her mother died of a brain tumor in 1998. Her older sister Debbie died from a heart attack, also in 1998. Carmen graduated from Princeton High School in Cincinnati. She also attended the School of Creative Arts and entertainment (SCPA) in Cincinnati Public School District (CPS). She has ancestry of Cherokee, Irish, and German.
Growing up with parents in the entertainment industry, Patrick studied dance from a very young age. After attending Cincinnati's School for the Creative and Performing Arts, she decided to pursue a career in music, moving from the Midwest to Los Angeles where she signed a record contract with Prince in 1991. It was Prince who encouraged her to change her name after reportedly saying she looked like a 'Carmen'. Electra also worked as a model, posing several times for Playboy before eventually being cast as Pamela Anderson?s replacement on the television series Baywatch. In addition to television, Electra has had small roles in such feature films as Scary Movie and Starsky and Hutch.
Carmen Electra is perhaps best known for the headlines she grabs off-screen. In the 1990s, she was romantically linked with musicians Tommy Lee and Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit. At the end of the decade, she had a brief marriage to flamboyant Chicago Bulls basket player Dennis Rodman. In 2003, she married rock musician Dave Navarro on MTV. The couple follow their nuptials with a reality series for the cable network entitled 'Til Death Do Us Part: Carmen & Dave.
Carmen started her professional career in 1990 as a dancer at Kings Island amusement park in Mason, Ohio in the show "It’s Magic", one of the more popular shows in the park's history. In 1991, she moved to California and met Prince. Soon after, Electra signed a recording contract with Prince's Paisley Park Records and began a short-lived singing career. During her time at Paisley Park Records, she officially became known as Carmen Electra.
In 1995, Electra started appearing in television programs. In May 1996 she was featured in a nude pictorial in Playboy magazine, the first of several. This exposure led to higher profile television appearances, including Baywatch (cast member from 1997–1998, as Leilani "Lani" McKenzie) and MTV's Singled Out. She returned to Baywatch for the 2003 reunion movie, Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding.
Carmen Electra was featured in Playboy four more times, with her second appearance in June 1997, third in December 2000, fourth in April 2003 and her fifth in the January 2009 anniversary issue. She was on the cover three times, in December 2000, April 2003 and on the 55th anniversary Issue in January 2009.
Carmen has appeared in films such as American Vampire (1997), Good Burger (1997), The Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human (1999), the horror spoof Scary Movie (2000) and also appeared in Meet the Spartans (2008), Scary Movie 4 (2006), Epic Movie (2007), Date Movie (2006), Disaster Movie (2008), the remake of the 1970s TV show Starsky & Hutch (2004) and Cheaper by the Dozen 2. She won an MTV Movie Award (best kiss) for Starsky & Hutch. She also appeared in an episode of House in which she portrayed herself as an injured golfer and an injured farmer, playing out House's fantasy.
In 1999, she appeared in the Bloodhound Gang's music video of "The Inevitable Return of the Great White Dope." In 2005, she joined the voice cast of the animated series Tripping the Rift, replacing Gina Gershon as the voice of the sexy android "Six". Also in 2005, she began the Naked Women's Wrestling League, acting as the commissioner for the professional wrestling promotion. In late 2006, Carmen began to be featured in commercials by Taco Bell.
Electra's video game work includes appearing as characters in Def Jam: Fight for New York and is one of the celebrity challenges in the video game ESPN NFL 2K5.
Carmen Electra has produced exercise videos and equipment. Her Carmen Electra Aerobic Striptease is a five-disc DVD series that combines teaching classic stripping moves with a low impact cardio workout, which also starred Jon Eby. She also endorses the Electra Pole, a pole dancing kit released in January 2008.
In 1997, Carmen Electra modeled for the covers of the comic books Razor and the Ladies of London Night by London Night Studios.
Carmen Electra appeared in commercials for Maxim Men's Hair Color products (2004–2005).
In 2006, Carmen Electra, signed on as spokes-model for Ritz Camera Centers, appearing in their TV and print ads and CEO David Ritz. SHe has performed in some of the Lonelygirl15 video parody that advertised in Epic Movie. In the same year Carmen appeared as the face and spokesperson for Max Factor make-up line (since 2006) in their own TV and print ads.
Electra has appeared as a guest judge on So you think you can dance Season 8 on July 6, 2011. She appeared with the regular series judges Nigel Lythgoe and Mary Murphy and colleagues guest Judge Travis Wall.
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