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Yasmine Bleeth
Yasmine Bleeth (left), November 11, 2006
Born	Yasmine Amanda Bleeth June 14, 1968 (1968-06-14) (age 40) New York City, New York
Occupation	Film, television actress
Years active	1980—2003
Spouse(s)	Paul Cerrito (2002—present)

Yasmine Amanda Bleeth (born June 14, 1968, in New York City) is an American TV and film actress. 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 the fragrant flower 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. Philip Bleeth became his daughter's business manager. 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. Later that year she appeared in a Max Factor cosmetic campaign, along with the model, Cristina Ferrare. 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 ¹. 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."²

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. The two lived in Manhattan, and planned to be married. Shortly after the wedding invitations were made out, however, she called off the marriage. She was then cast for Baywatch and moved to Los Angeles.

Her star rose quickly as a result of this role. People named her one of magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in 1995. She would be one of FHM's 100 Sexiest Women in the World every year from 1996 - 2001, and FHM's U.S. 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, September 2001

On September 12, 2001, Bleeth was arrested in Michigan after her car pulled off the highway and wound up on a median. No other cars were involved. 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.¹

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. She wasn't treated any better than anyone else, and she wasn't treated any worse," Sabbota said. Bleeth completely fulfilled the terms of her probation as of January 2004, and her record was cleared as previously determined by the plea bargain.

Rehab and sobriety

Attorney Sabbota stated that Bleeth had returned to Promises rehabilitation clinic. 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. She wrote that "consciously trying to stay off drugs is now part of my life and always will be." ³

Commenting on her cocaine addiction, Bleeth said, "It was almost like falling in love... 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."⁴ They were married in Santa Barbara, California, on August 25, 2002.⁵ They now live in Birmingham, Michigan. Her husband runs Jon Jon's Cabaret in nearby Warren.⁶

Career summary

As a result of her role in Baywatch in the mid 1990s, Yasmine was offered many more roles in television and film. 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 2000.¹ 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. In an interview with Dennis Hensley, she said she delighted in her over-the-top depiction of a crazed beauty queen in the 1997 TV movie Crowned and Dangerous. 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) ... Starring role; a series of three one-act plays written by Charlie Loventhal (Second Stage Theater, New York, New York, USA)
• Looking for It (late 1980s) ... 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.⁷ 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.

References

External links

• Yasmine Bleeth at Allmovie
• Yasmine Bleeth at TV.com
• A Mother's Legacy Her account of her mother's cancer