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Carmen Electra (born April 20, 1972) is an American model, television personality, actress and singer.  

Electra was born near Cincinnati, in Sharonville, Ohio, as Tara Leigh Patrick to a family of Irish, German, and Native American (Cherokee) descent. She attended Princeton High School for four years in Sharonville, a suburb of Cincinnati and very briefly Walnut Hills High School.

In spite of the superficial similarity in names, she is not related to adult film actress Tera Patrick, who was born Linda Hopkins Shapiro.

Career

After moving to California, she met singer Prince (a Minneapolis native), who persuaded her to change her name to Carmen Electra. Soon after, she signed a recording contract with Paisley Park Records, Prince’s company, marking the start of a short-lived singing career with a girl rap group.

 

 

In 1995, Electra started appearing in various television programs. Then, in May of 1996 she appeared in Playboy magazine. This led to an increasing role as a television personality on various shows, including regular roles on Baywatch and MTV’s Singled Out. She made a notable appearance on Howard Stern’s television show in which she was strapped to a chair and tickled to the point she was laughing hysterically, stating afterward that she has the “most ticklish feet ever,” and another where Howard has her riding on a Sybian.

Electra has appeared in several films, such as Good Burger (1997), The Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human (1999), the horror spoof Scary Movie (2000) and one of its sequels, Scary Movie 4 (2006), and the remake of the 1970s TV show Starsky & Hutch (2004). She has also made cameo appearances as herself in The Simpsons episode The Frying Game and the 2006 comedy American Dreamz. She also regularly performed with the exotic dance troupe The Pussycat Dolls. Electra also created the highly successful Carmen Electra Aerobic Striptease series of DVDs which combines classic stripping moves with a low impact workout. Her most recent movie appearance is as Eugene Levy’s trophy wife in Cheaper by the Dozen 2.

Her acting work is regularly derided by critics; in the Roger Ebert review of the film Dirty Love, he states: “The Carmen Electra character, meanwhile, struts around like a ho in a bad music video, speaking black street talk as if she learned it phonetically, and pulling out a gun and holding it to a man’s head because she thinks, obviously, that pulling guns on guys is expected of any authentic black woman. A scene like that would be insulting in any other movie; here it possibly distracts her from doing something even more debasing.”

In 2005, she joined the voice cast of the animated series Tripping the Rift, replacing Gina Gershon as the voice of the sex android “Six”.

Surprisingly, given her early work in Playboy and her reputation as a sex symbol, Electra has been very reluctant to appear nude on screen. She has only done one genuine nude scene in a movie, early in her career in The Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human.

 

 

Personal life

Electra achieved considerable notoriety during her on-again, off-again marriage to basketball star Dennis Rodman from 1998 to 1999. The wedding to Rodman took place in Las Vegas, Nevada. Later, she had a brief affair with Tommy Lee, the ex-husband of Pamela Anderson. Borrowing another page from fellow Baywatch companion Anderson’s publicity playbook, Electra was quoted in August 2004 that she was thinking of having her breast implants removed. She told World Entertainment News Network,

I had nice breasts to begin with. They weren´t the biggest boobs, (but) I just think it was really trendy (to have implants) at a certain time, so I decided to do it. There are moments when I think it´s kind of silly and I wish I would´ve just stayed natural.

 

 

Electra’s current husband, musician Dave Navarro, was formerly the lead guitarist of the rock band Jane’s Addiction The couple documented their courtship and marriage on an MTV reality show in 2004 entitled Til Death Do Us Part: Carmen & Dave. Several recent articles have cited that the two are “skipping the separation and heading right for the divorce.” Navarro has denied the rumour numerous times at his official webpage. On  August 11, 2006 Carmen Filed for a divorce from dave.

 

 

In 2006, Electra revealed she had a lesbian little girl crush on Joan Jett starting when she was eight years old. She remembers especially lusting after Jett watching the music video of “Do You Wanna Touch Me” where Jett opens a trenchcoat to reveal her bikini clad body.

Filmography

*An American Vampire Story (1997)

*Good Burger (1997)

*Starstruck (1998)

*The Chosen One: Legend of the Raven (1998)

*The Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human (1999)

*Christmas Vacation 2000 (1999)

*The Great White Dope (2000) (short subject)

*Scary Movie (2000)

*Welcome to Hollywood (2000) (documentary)

*Sol Goode (2001)

*Perfume (2001)

*Get Over It (2001)

*Rent Control (2002)

*Naked Movie (2002)

*Whacked! (2002)

*Uptown Girls (2003)

*My Boss’s Daughter (2003)

*Starsky & Hutch (2004)

*Mr. 3000 (2004) (Cameo)

*Max Havoc: Curse of the Dragon (2004)

*Dirty Love (2005)

*Lil’ Pimp (2005) (voice)

*Searching for Bobby D (2005)

*Getting Played (2005)

*Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005)

*Date Movie (2006)

*Scary Movie 4 (2006)

*American Dreamz (2006) (Cameo)

Upcoming:

*Full of It (2006)

*Hot Tamale (2006)

*National Lampoon’s Pledge This! (2006)

*Beyond Legend: Johnny Kakota (2006)

 

 

TV Work

Singled Out (host in 1997)

Loveline (host in 1997)

Baywatch (cast member from 1997-1998)

Baywatch: White Thunder at Glacier Bay (1998)

Hyperion Bay (cast member in 1999)

Electra’s Guy (2000)

VH1’s 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock (2000 host)

Cleavage (2002) (documentary) (narrator)

Carmen & Dave: An MTV Love Story (2002)

Livin’ Large (host from 2002-2003 and from 2003-2004)

BattleBots (host in 2002)

Dance Fever (2003) (contest judge)

Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding (2003)

The Simpsons (2003)

Til Death Do Us Part: Carmen + Dave (2004) (miniseries)

Punk’d (2004)

Monster Island (2004)

Manhunt: The Search for America’s Most Gorgeous Male Model (2004) (miniseries)

Naked Women’s Wrestling League (host 2004) (pay-per-view event)

House: Three Stories (as herself 2005)

Tripping the Rift (2005-present)

Beat It! (2006)

Other Work

Carmen Electra Aerobic Striptease is a five-disc DVD exercise series that combines teaching classic stripping moves with a low impact cardio workout.

Embrace Comic Book written by Carmen Electra for London Night Studios.

Soccer AM - Carmen waved goodbye on the 15 April 2006.

“Glam Slam Ulysses” Interactive Musical Theatrical Production,” conceived by Prince. Debuted at Prince’s legendary Glam Slam L.A. nightclub.