YASMINE BLEETH Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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YASMINE BLEETH

Name: Yasmine Amanda Bleeth                                                                         
Born: 14 June 1968 New York City, New York                                                           
                                                                                                     
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.                     
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.                                                                                               
                                                                                                     
Philip Bleeth, Yasmin's American father, is Jewish of Russian and German                             
ancestry, while her late mother Carina was of French and Algerian descent.                           
                                                                                                     
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.                         
                                                                                                     
Bleeth's earliest known acting role was in a Johnson & Johnson's No More Tears                       
baby shampoo television commercial at age ten 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 age 6 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, New York,                     
and she received a bilingual (English and French) education. She was very                           
popular with boys. 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."                                               
                                                                                                     
The twelve-year-old Yasmine Bleeth in Hey Babe!, her first film.                                     
                                                                                                     
Bleeth starred in her first movie in 1980 at the age of twelve. 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.                               
                                                                                                     
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, but                           
shortly after the wedding invitations were made out, 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.                                                                               
                                                                                                     
Despite her success, 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. 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.                           
                                                                                                     
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.                                                           
                                                                                                     
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 she had a                           
cocaine habit that was so severe that she collapsed at a photo shoot for Glamour                     
magazine, 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."                                 
                                                                                                     
Commenting on her cocaine addiction, Bleeth said, "It was almost like falling in                     
love... It became my boyfriend, my best friend, my family."                                         
                                                                                                     
Bleeth met married strip club owner Paul Cerrito at the Promises clinic. 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 and they now live in Birmingham, Michigan. Her husband runs                         
Jon Jon's Cabaret in Warren.                                                                         
                                                                                                     
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. 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 once, and I                           
screamed at him, 'Take it off! Take it off!' I get a little nasty about my crown."