Carmen Electra: Snapshot

Name
Carmen Electra
Date of Birth
April 20, 1972
Birth Place
White Oak, Ohio
Carmen Electra was just Tara Patrick before auditioning for Prince in 1990. The audition changed her life (and her name), with the 18-year-old touring with Prince and recording an album. Though the singing never took off, she eventually found fame as a Playboy centerfold.

The Ohio native gained more recognition when she replaced two fellow Playmates: Jenny McCarthy as host of the MTV game show Singled Out and Pamela Anderson as a lifeguard on Baywatch – even though she didn't know how to swim.

After a short Las Vegas marriage to basketball star Dennis Rodman in 1998, Electra married guitarist Dave Navarro and filmed her journey to the altar for MTV's 'Til Death Do Us Part: Carmen & Dave. But, in 2006, she and Navarro amicably divorced, and Electra moved on with fiancé Rob Patterson in 2008.

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Carmen Electra: Five Fun Facts

  1. Carmen Electra had her first kiss when she was 7 at a roller-skating party in her basement while AC/DC's ''Back in Black'' played in the background.
  2. Carmen Electra's favorite summer job was working in a magic show at a theme park in Ohio. "I was the girl they'd saw in half," she told PEOPLE.
  3. Carmen Electra's first single, the Prince-produced "Go-Go Dancer," was originally promoted to 369 strip clubs in the U.S. Electra says the song was intended to inspire each club's "most popular and hardest-working dancer."
  4. The soundtrack for the movie musical Grease was the first album Carmen Electra owned. "It inspired me to become an entertainer," she told Entertainment Weekly.
  5. Carmen Electra has one problem with being a sex symbol: "I was watching an HBO special the other night on real-life maximum-security prison guys," Electra told PEOPLE. "I glanced up, and my poster was in quite a few cells. I was screaming, 'Oh, no!'"

Carmen Electra: Biography

1981

Carmen Electra

Growing Talent

After four years of dance lessons, Electra is enrolled in Cincinnati's School for Creative and Performing Arts, where she appears in Peter Pan with classmate Nick Lachey. "I wanted to dance on Broadway," Electra tells PEOPLE in 1997.

1997

Carmen Electra

February 07

Singled Out

Electra takes over for fellow Playboy model Jenny McCarthy on Singled Out, MTV's Gen-X version of The Dating Game. "There's only one Jenny McCarthy, so I'm not going to try to be the same type of person," Electra says to Entertainment Weekly. The show is cancelled in less than a year.

Carmen Electra

September

Baywatch Babe

Following yet another Playmate, Electra joins the cast of Baywatch as the character Lani McKenzie after Pamela Anderson's departure.

Read More on Carmen Electra's Life

Photo Credits

Top Left: Michael Bezjian/WireImage

BIOGRAPHY (top to bottom): Clark Samuels/StarTraks; Lisa Rose/Globe; Photofest

Edited by Julia Wang

Carmen Electra

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