While Baywatch feels like a relic today, the series was a serious cultural touchstone: Has anyone actually run fast on a beach since we first saw the cast's slow-motion struts in the sand? The show had a whopping 1.2 billion weekly viewers at its peak popularity, more than any other programming ever before it. With much of the cast and show's secrets being revealed in the docuseries After Baywatch: A Moment In the Sun , see the biggest breakout cast members of the show then and now.
Related: What to Know About the Baywatch Reboot Baywatch Cast Then and Now David Hasselhoff Paul Harris/Getty Images Just a few years after starring in Knight Rider , David Hasselhoff was cast as the lead L.A. County lifeguard Mitch Buchannon in Baywatch .
The show was actually canceled after a single season, but he self-funded it to bring it back for more, and it was money well spent: He eventually starred in 220 episodes of the series. After Baywatch ended, Hasselhoff appeared in a slew of movies, including Dodgeball , The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, Hop and Piranha 3DD , Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 , as well as in musicals including The Producers , 9 to 5 and Chicago .
He also competed in Season 11 of Dancing With the Stars , had his own Comedy Central roast and served as a judge on America's Got Talent for four seasons, moving to Britain's Got Talent in 2011. Hasselhoff and his daughters briefly starred in a reality show aptly titled The Hasselhoffs in 2010. Jeff Kravitz/Getty Images Today, Hasselhoff is still acting and doesn't take himself or his Baywatch role too seriously: He reprises it periodically for parodies and commercials .
He's also still a huge pop star in Germany, works as a motivational speaker and has a Malibu-themed clothing line . Related: David Hasselhoff Is 'Crying' as He Shares Major Family Update Pamela Anderson All-American Television The biggest breakout star of Baywatch was, undoubtedly, Pamela Anderson , who played lifeguard C.J.
Parker and made red one-piece swimsuits instantly iconic in 1992. Anderson starred in Barb Wire in 1996 and left Baywatch in 1997. She was cast as the lead in the series V.
I.P. a year later for a four-season run and made several guest appearances on The Nanny as Heather Biblow, a rival to Fran Drescher 's Fran Fine.
She next starred in Stacked for two seasons, was roasted on Comedy Central in 2005 and played herself in Borat in 2006. She's competed in several global iterations of Dancing With the Stars (include stateside for Season 10), as well as in Big Brother in the U.K.
Throughout her career, the mother of two ( with ex Tommy Lee ) has advocated tirelessly for causes close to her heart, including animal rights (she's a longtime vegan and works with PETA often), freeing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and supporting fellow survivors of domestic violence. In January 2023, Anderson released her memoir, Love, Pamela , and a Netflix documentary on her life, Pamela: A Love Story debuted the same month. Kevin Mazur/MG24/Getty Images Related: Pamela Anderson's Net Worth From Baywatch and More Michael Newman Avalon/Getty Images Michael "Newmie" Newman , a real-life lifeguard and firefighter, played himself in Baywatch from 1989 to 2000.
In 2008, Newman was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, but remains active—and still loves to swim. Gilbert Flores/Getty Images Related: Baywatch Actor Mike Newman Opens Up About His Lengthy Battle With Parkinson's Alexandra Paul Alexandra Paul broke through with a starring role in the 1983 film adaptation of Stephen King 's Christine and has worked consistently since. She made her Baywatch debut in 1992 as Lt.
Stephanie Holden, and since then has appeared in 15 Lifetime Original movies, cameoed with Anderson in Borat , starred in Fire Company 132 and Melrose Place and worked as an activist for LGBTQ, population control, animal rights and environmental causes. Michael Tullberg/Getty Images Related: The Best and Worst Stephen King Movies, Ranked Nicole Eggert Fotos International/Getty Images Nicole Eggert starred as Roberta "Summer" Quinn in Baywatch Season 3 and 4, having previously starred in Charles In Charge . She later appeared in several reality TV series, including as Ginger in The Real Gilligan's Island , Celebrity Fit Club , Splash and Botched .
Eggert started an ice cream truck business in 2014 and has two daughters. In December 2023, Eggert revealed she was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer, and she is undergoing treatment. Michael Loccisano/Getty Images Jeremy Jackson BSR Entertainment/Getty Images Jeremy Jackson starred as Hobie Buchannon, Mitch's son, on Baywatch from Season 2 through Season 10.
After Baywatch , he appeared on VH1's Confessions of a Teen Idol , where he revealed he actually beat out Leonardo DiCaprio for the role of Hobie—which Hasselhoff actually confirmed was true. (We're sure Leo's not too broken up about it anymore.) In 2011, he appeared on Celebrity Rehab With Dr.
Drew . Jackson appeared in Celebrity Big Brother 15 , but was booted from the show for opening a fellow housemate's robe without her consent. Jackson reportedly has been in recovery since 2017, when he spent time behind bars for a stabbing two years earlier.
Michael Tullberg/Getty Images Carmen Electra Hulton Archive via Getty Images Carmen Electra starred as lifeguard and aspiring dancer Lani McKenzie in Baywatch in Season 8. After Baywatch , she co-hosted MTV's Singled Out , then starred in the Scary Movie franchise, Date Movie , Cheaper By the Dozen 2 and more. She performed often with the Pussycat Dolls dance troupe (not the former girl group), guest-judged So You Think You Can Dance and and has maintained a parody movie fixture.
In 2022, she announced she joined OnlyFans. Michael Tullberg/Getty Images David Charvet Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images David Charvet starred as Matt Brody on Baywatch from 1992 to 1995, then joined the cast of Melrose Place as Craig Field. During those periods, he also appeared in several TV movies.
Charvet, a French native, moved back to France after Melrose Place to pursue a music career, and he was quite successful—he's sold 2.5 million albums! Today, Charvet, who shares a son and daughter with ex-wife Brooke Burke , is a partner at a residential real estate development company. joce zerojack/Bauer-Griffin/Getty Images Related: What to Know About the Melrose Place Reboot Traci Bingham Steve.
Granitz/Getty Images Traci Bingham starred as lifeguard Jordan Tate on Baywatch from 1996 through 1998. Since leaving the series, she's appeared in The Surreal Life , Celebrity Big Brother , The Surreal Life: Fame Games and Gimme My Reality Show . Gilbert Flores/Getty Images David Chokachi Cody Madison in Baywatch was David Chokachi 's first acting role.
He starred in the show from 1995 to 1999. He worked steadily through 2018, including guest-starring on Anderson's series V.I.
P. and leading the series Witchblade . “The global reach Baywatch had—and still has—is just mindblowing,” Chokachi told PEOPLE in August 2024.
“I have been in some very remote places in the world, and I’ll get recognized from my time on Baywatch .” Gilbert Flores/Getty Images Yasmine Bleeth Hulton Archive via Getty Images Yasmine Bleeth got her start as a child star and model before she starred as Caroline Holden, Stephanie's younger sister and a lifeguard, from 1993 to 1997. Renowned for her beauty, she made basically every men's magazine top 100 list from the 1990s through the early 2000s and was often mentioned for her good looks on Friends (though she never appeared in the series).
After Baywatch , she appeared in several guest roles in TV shows and starred in several TV movies and in Trey Parker and Matt Stone 's comedy BASEketball . She also had lead roles in Nash Bridges and Titans . After a 2001 arrest, Bleeth began her recovery from cocaine addiction and left the spotlight, returning nearly two decades later for the indie comedy Whack the Don .
Steve Grayson/Getty Images Jaason Simmons Ron Galella/Getty Images Jaason Simmons starred as hunky Australian exchange student and lifeguard Logan Fowler from 1994 to 1997. After leaving Baywatch , Simmons was a theater regular in London. He's since appeared periodically in TV shows and indie movies, as well as the original Sharknado in 2013.
Simmons came out as gay in March 2008. During his tenure on Baywatch , Alexandra Paul pretended to date him to protect him from being outed by paparazzi or gossip magazines. "He's one of my closest friends on the show, so it was a secret we kept," Paul said in After Baywatch: A Moment In the Sun ( via PEOPLE ).
"It was so dangerous for a man to come out, especially when you're a handsome leading man because producers wouldn't hire you as a hetero guy getting girls, and that was the character he was playing. "There are pictures of him and I in the National Enquirer holding hands and kissing because he needed a beard," she added. "We did a photoshoot of both of us naked that appeared on the cover of a British newspaper.
We wanted to make sure he was protected." Michael Tullberg/Getty Images Related: See the 'Jersey Shore' Cast Then and Now — From Seaside to 'Family Vacation'.
