Baywatch icon Erika Eleniak looked worlds away from her role as the swimsuit-clad Shauni McClain as she made a rare appearance at an LA fundraiser on Saturday.
Following the first anniversary of the devastating wildfires, the actress, 56, attended The Brave and the Rescued Honouring LA Fire Department First Responders event at the LA City Fire Museum.
In stark contrast to her appearance in the famous 90s show, Erika displayed her intricate arm tattoos as she arrived for the event.
The siren made her film debut in Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial in 1982, and she later changed up her image as a Playboy Playmate for Hugh Hefner.
The television star is best known for slipping into a red swimsuit to star on Baywatch for three years, from 1989 to 1992, alongside iconic stars David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson.
Since then, Erika has continued to act, starring in Under Siege, A Pyromaniac’s Love Story, and 1993’s The Beverly Hillbillies.
Baywatch icon Erika Eleniak looked worlds away from her role as the swimsuit-clad Shauni McClain as she made a rare appearance at an LA fundraiser on Saturday
The television star is best known for slipping into a red swimsuit to star on Baywatch for three years, from 1989 to 1992, alongside iconic stars David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson
Having began getting tattoos in her 20s, Erika opened up about her intricate inkings in an appearance on the Still Here Hollywood podcast.
She said: ‘I have a lot of tattoos. It’s been a long road.’
At the time, Erike detailed that ‘every tattoo that she is significant of something,’ sharing that one on the inner part of her arm is dedicated to her late mother Irish.
She added: ‘I love tattoos. I love that my body is a canvas to tell my stories. It’s fun.’
While Baywatch was known for its swimsuit-clad cast running across the idyllic beaches of Calfornia, Erika had recently revealed that filming the series was wholly different.
She told Fox News: ‘When we shot that show… it was January. It was the coldest time of the year. We would use these huge lights to make it look hot and sunny. I remember running in the water on the coldest day of the year.
‘Our lips were so blue that we couldn’t use the footage. It was ridiculous. It was so cold.’
Erika left the show following its third season and has shared the struggles to land roles due to being typecast.
Following the first anniversary of the devastating wildfires, the actress attended The Brave and the Rescued Honouring LA Fire Department First Responders event
In stark contrast to her appearance in the famous 90s show, Erika displayed her intricate arm tattoos as she arrived for the event
Since Baywatch, Erika has continued to act, starring in Under Siege, A Pyromaniac’s Love Story, and 1993’s The Beverly Hillbillies
Having began getting tattoos in her 20s, Erika previously said: ‘I love tattoos. I love that my body is a canvas to tell my stories. It’s fun’
Erika left Baywatch following its third season and has shared the struggles to land roles due to being typecast
She added: ‘I’m so grateful to the show. I left because it was time for me to go at the height and hopefully be able to use that in my mind.
‘What happened to me is I had to end up working three times as hard than I thought I would because of, ”Oh, bouncing breasts, blonde, here she comes thinking she’s going to get the role.” And I did get some great roles but I busted my a*s.’
Eleniak was born in Glendale, California, to parents of Ukrainian, Estonian and German descent whose family had previously settled in Canada.
The star was a part of cinematic history in 1982 when she was cast as a girl who kisses E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial child star, Henry Thomas during a classroom scene.
Her next film role was in 1983’s Imps*, which only received a belated release in 2009.
In 1987, she began appearing on television with guest roles on Silver Spoons, Still the Beaver and Boys Will Be Boys.
After a multi-year absence, she returned to film to play one of the victims in 1988’s gross-out remake of The Blob, which is now considered a science fiction horror cult classic.
She followed it up with roles in bigger budget films, including the Steven Seagal action film Under Siege, the 1993 film adaptation of The Beverly Hillbillies, the 1995 rom-com A Pyromaniac’s Love Story and the 1996 Tales From The Crypt spinoff film Bordello Of Blood.
Her subsequent films in the late ’90s, 2000s and 2020s were less frequent and were small-budget independent productions.
Eleniak’s most recent film was 2024’s Lolipop Gang, in which she appeared as herself five years after her previous film role.
The beginning of her Baywatch career in 1989 coincided with her appearing on the cover of the July 1989 issue of Playboy Magazine.
Just before her stint on Baywatch, Eleniak appeared as a Playmate on the July 1989 cover of Playboy Magazine when her roommate, a model for the magazine, introduced her to its photo editor, who encouraged her to model.
Eleniak said she became known as ‘the difficult’ Playmate in the late ’80s because she found shooting for the magazine uncomfortable and bristled at ideas from photographers. ‘I viewed it as a modeling job,’ she clarified on Still Here Hollywood, and she stressed that she always considered herself ‘an actress who did Playboy,’ rather than a real Playmate.
Eleniak later married the bodybuilder Philip Golgia in 1998, but they divorced after just six months. In the early 2000s she began dating the film worker Roch Daigle, and they moved to Calgary, Canada, before tying the knot in 2005 and later welcoming a daughter together.
Erika’s most recent project was narrating an eight-episode podcast series, The Murder Years, from last year, according to IMDb.
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