Yasmine Bleeth
She is famous for her role as Caroline Holden on the worldwide-syndicated TV series Baywatch, where she played a red-swimsuit-clad professional lifeguard.
Biography
Family
Philip Bleeth, Yasmine's American father, is Jewish of Russian and German ancestry, while her late mother Carina was of French and Algerian descent. Her given name Yasmine is Arabic for a fragrant flower and Hebrew for Jasmine.
Bleeth is Yiddish in origin, and was once spelled as Blut, which is German for blood.
Her mother was a former fashion model, while her father was a professional photographer. They both ran a business that rented vans to fashion photographers for on-location shoots.
Bleeth's parents separated and later divorced; she was raised by her mother.
Childhood
Bleeth's earliest known acting role was in a Johnson & Johnson's No More Tears baby shampoo television commercial at age 10 months at the end of 1968 or the beginning of 1969. She once said: "I did my first commercial when I was 10 months old, and I've been in the business ever since." At the age of six, she appeared on Candid Camera.
Her work in this campaign caught the eye of fashion photographer, Francesco Scavullo, who subsequently included her and her mother, Carina, in his book entitled Scavullo Women.
Bleeth attended the United Nations International School in Manhattan, and she received a bilingual (English and French) education . At one time when she was 14 years old, she had to be away from school for a few months for her acting career.
Nevertheless, Total Film magazine quotes her as saying, "When I was a girl I used to have to force boys to kiss me. My toughest friend had to hold them down."
On-screen beginnings
Bleeth starred in her first movie in 1980 at the age of 12.
She was cast opposite Buddy Hackett in the feature film Hey Babe!.
By the time she graduated from high school, she had had already been working on the soap opera Ryan's Hope since the age of 16. In 1991, she created the role as Lee Anne Demerest on the highly acclaimed soap opera One Life to Live.
Mother's death
When Bleeth was 20, she lost her mother Carina to inflammatory breast cancer at the age of 47.
Bleeth said that she never accepted the fact that her mother was dying until Carina took her very last breath.
After Carina died, Bleeth fell into depression and she turned down offers for acting or modeling work for about eight months.
About this time, she met Ricky Paull Goldin, a soap actor who helped her with her depression. She was then cast for Baywatch and moved to Los Angeles.
Her star rose quickly as a result of this role.
100 Sexiest Women every year from 2000 - 2003.
Drug addiction and arrest
In December 2000, Bleeth voluntarily entered the Malibu-based Promises rehabilitation clinic to overcome a cocaine addiction.
Yasmine Bleeth's booking photo at time of her arrest for drug possession
On September 12, 2001, Bleeth was arrested in Michigan after her car pulled off the highway and wound up on a median. The car accident occurred on Interstate 94 near Detroit as she and her future husband, Paul Cerrito, were heading to Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
Police found four syringes with an injectable form of cocaine in them and a small plastic bag with cocaine residue on it.
The next day police conducted a search of her hotel room, and they found more cocaine and drug paraphernalia. In November 2001, through a plea bargain, Bleeth pleaded guilty to possessing less than 25 grams of cocaine and to driving while impaired.
She was sentenced in January 2002 to two years of probation and 100 hours of community service.
Bleeth's lawyer, Jerry Sabbota, stated that the actress was satisfied with the plea bargain, noting that her record will be cleared of any felonies after she fulfills the terms of her probation. "When all is said and done she'll have a traffic ticket on her record.
In an issue of Glamour from April 2003, Bleeth wrote a three page article entitled "Back From my Drugs Hell" about her rocky path to recovery, her drug addiction, and her struggle to remain sober. She wrote that her cocaine habit was so severe that she collapsed at a photo shoot for Glamour, and she went without sleep for five days at a time.
It became my boyfriend, my best friend, my family."
Marriage
Bleeth met her future husband, strip club owner Paul Cerrito, at the Promises clinic during her first stay there. Bleeth would later comment, "They say you shouldn't get into any relationship in the first year of sobriety — especially with someone in the program, but Paul and I fell in love immediately." They were married in Santa Barbara, California, on August 25, 2002. They now live in Birmingham, Michigan.
She has been a featured actress in five series and has guest-starred in numerous other shows. During her television career, she continued to work as a model, frequently appearing in swimwear or lingerie.
She has never appeared nude despite many offers.
Bleeth was asked by a fan: "Why have you turned down repeated offers to pose for Playboy?" Yasmine responded: "I'm not interested in Playboy. I'm a fashion maven, and I love people to see me with my clothes on." She once had her own line of swimwear called Yaz Wear.
Bleeth turned down roles in Aaron Spelling's Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990) and Pacific Palisades (1997) but accepted the starring role in the short-lived series Titans in 2000. Aaron Spelling was so eager to cast Yasmine in the role of a vixen on Titans that his company convinced CBS to grant her an early release from her Nash Bridges contract.
She said, "I keep my crown from that film on my desk in a little Lucite box. My little brother tried it on once, and I screamed at him, 'Take it off! Take it off!' I get a little nasty about my crown."
Television series
Titans, 2000
Nash Bridges, 1998-2000
Baywatch, 1994-1997
One Life to Live, 1991-1993
Ryan's Hope, 1985-1989
Boy Meets World (Special Guest Star)
Movies
Game Over, 2003
Maximum Surge, 2003
Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding, 2003
Goodbye Casanova, 2000
Hidden War, 2000
Road Rage, 1999
Coming Soon, 1999
Heaven or Vegas, 1999
Undercover Angel, 1999
Ultimate Deception, 1999
It Came From the Sky, 1999
BASEketball, 1998
The Lake, 1998
Crowned and Dangerous, 1997
Talk to Me, 1996
The Face, 1996
Baywatch the Movie: Forbidden Paradise, 1995
The Force, 1994
Beverly Hills 90210 - Brandon s'innamora, 1993
Hey Babe!, 1980
Theatre
Welcome to My Life (October 1991) ...
off-broadway play
Music videos
Bleeth appeared in The Rembrandts' video This House is Not a Home, a follow-up song to their theme song for Friends.
Breast cancer advocate
Bleeth was the 1998 spokesperson for the Lee National Denim Day fundraising campaign, which raises millions of dollars for breast cancer research and education. In 1998 it occurred on October 9, and was called the 'Wear Jeans to Work' campaign.
Through Bleeth's help, $5 million was raised on that one day to help the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Her primary message to women was to pay attention to their bodies; Her mother was initially misdiagnosed by a doctor who thought that she was going through early menopause.
Bleeth donated the proceeds of her $10,000 win on Celebrity Jeopardy to breast cancer research.
She hoped to use her celebrity status to expand breast cancer awareness - particularly to young women who might overlook what an older woman would not ignore.
Bleeth has been a spokesperson for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation who, along with corporate sponsor Ford, put together the nationally run Race for the Cure.
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