Carmen Electra On How Prince Changed Her Name & Doing Her Own ‘Baywatch’ Stunts
You probably guessed that Carmen Electra was a stage name. But you might not know how the former host of Singled Out and star of Baywatch, Scary Movie and Til Death Do Us Part: Carmen + Dave actually got her moniker. The actress, singer, and model revealed on the “Fabulous Ladies of the ’90s” panel at 90s Con in Daytona Beach, Florida that her famous moniker came from none other than her early career mentor (and ex-boyfriend), Prince.
Electra, 52, hails from a musical family based out of Cincinnati, Ohio — her father once played guitar alongside funk great Bootsy Collins. But she connected with the Purple One on a trip to Los Angeles when she was 18. “I saved up a little bit of money and I told my mom, ‘I’m out but I don’t know if I’m coming back,'” Electra recalled. A professionally trained dancer, Electra gave herself two weeks to get a career started in L.A. She almost immediately secured work as a dancer on Soul Train: “I danced down the middle.”
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Electra had set her career sights higher; she dreamed of being a backup dancer for a pop star like Janet Jackson. But while out at a club in L.A., she began a trajectory that would put her in touch with a completely different pop star. “This girl [said she] was working with Prince and I didn’t believe her, you know, because I was 18 and that NEVER happened in Cincinnati,” Electra said.
Electra met with Prince “and he kind of scared me. I don’t know why … the hairy chest? I don’t know.” Electra had signed a demo deal with Capital Records at that point; Prince, upon hearing her demos, said he would get her a new deal “because your songs are horrible. He said ‘I could use [this demo CD] as a coaster or a frisbee.’”
But Prince “set me up and he was soooo supportive…[he said] ‘I want you to open up for me in Europe.’ I was like, ‘What? How do I do that?’ But with his support, I got a tad bit more confident and just tried things.” Electra has fond memories of the Purple Rain singer, who passed in 2016: “I was so blessed to see him do what he does.”
Prince’s support extended to helping Electra come up with a new, more stage-worthy name to replace her birth name, Tara Leigh Patrick. “It was like, OK, Prince’s given me this name that is … wow, crazy,” said Electra. “And it kind of stuck, way after that lifetime … it has a spark in it.”
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But she only recently changed her name legally to “Carmen Electra” — previously, she used Tara Leigh Patrick in her private life because “I wouldn’t want my dad to feel weird, although everyone was calling me by the Prince-given name.” But now that “that side of the family is deceased,” Electra felt free to fully embrace the name that she’s known to the world by.
Carmen Electra Talks Doing Her Own Baywatch Stunts
Electra also reflected on her time on Baywatch, where she played Lani McKenzie from 1997 to 1998. “My favorite moments of Baywatch were when I could really do a stunt,” Electra remembered. “They really wanted us to do all of our own stunts because people had been complaining about the previous cast. They didn’t believe [their stunts].” Though she was reluctant to scuba dive on camera, stunts where she and the cast dove off boats, throw life preservers, and launched up into the air were all real. “I have so much respect for David [Hasselhoff],” she said, “because that was his show. And the cast that did it for so long because it was hard, it was tough. It was like working out every day, too.”
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But just because it was fun, doesn’t mean stunt work didn’t provide its own challenges. “I don’t think you realize that swimming in a pool [versus] swimming in the ocean … is sooo different, unless you’re an ocean person,” said Electra. “You’re coming out [of the water] to do scenes and open your eyes, but [they’re] burning and you’re trying to look hot at the same time.”
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July 2021
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