David Hasselhoff (b.
July 17, 1952), US actor
Born in
Baltimore, MD, Hasselhoff first came to prominence by becoming a popular leading man on daytime TV, playing Dr. Bill “Snapper” Foster on
The Young and the Restless from
1975 to
1982.
Thanks to the coaxing of
NBC executive
Brandon Tartikoff, Hasselhoff went
prime time with the drama
Knight Rider. He played
Michael Knight, who drove around stopping nefarious criminals with the help of a talking black
Trans Am named
KITT. The show ran four seasons until cancellation in
1986, but a combination of
syndication and
nostalgia make it still popular today. Despite this, everyone thought Hasselhoff would go the way of
Erik Estrada and fade away into B-movie obscurity. Hasselhoff starred in a number of bad movies over the years, most of them TV movies and none of them bear more than three stars from allmovie.com.
But unfortunately Hasselhoff refused to fade away and reinvented himself as a pop singer. In the US, as a musician he’s a joke, but he somehow managed to develop a rabid fan base in
Europe. Hasselhoff, a fluent speaker of
German, is especially popular in
Germany.
Germans love David Hasselhoff. He actually began his recording career while
Knight Rider was still on the air, with the
1984 album
Night Rider. (Get it? “Night Rider”?) But he didn’t become a Europop star until
1989 with the album
Looking for Freedom. The immensely popular title track became an anthem for the German people, or at least that’s what his website claims. The highlight of his pop career was no doubt his
New Year’s Eve 1989 concert at the
Berlin Wall, which drew 500,000 spectators.
Germans love David Hasselhoff.
In
1989, Hasselhoff starred in another NBC prime time drama,
Baywatch, as Lt. Mitch Buchanan, head of a squad of
Los Angeles lifeguards. In this incarnation, Baywatch was bland, dull, sexless, boring, much like it is now, but it had much less
cleveage and was quickly cancelled after only one season. But
never underestimate the power of breasts. Hasselhoff and his partners brought the show back to life in
1991 as a syndicated drama, and now it is probably the most watched show in the world. God help us all.
In
2000, Hasselhoff invaded
Broadway, starring in the title roles in
Jekyll & Hyde. Soon he plans to release an album which will feature him singing in
Spanish for the first time. Eep! He’s married to actress
Pamela Bach and they have two daughters. And he once saved the life of a drowning child, which just goes to show you that at least he did something good once.
Sources: allmovie.com, allmusic.com, davidhasselhoff.com