Erika
Eleniak
Erika
Eleniak was born on September 29, 1969 in Glendale,
a small suburb of Los Angeles where she spent the first 10 years
of her life. She got her name from her Ukrainian great grand-father
who emigrated to the United States. Her parents got divorced very
quickly.
Her dad, who came
from his native Canada with the dream of becoming an actor in Hollywood,
did not succeed. At the time, he was going out with a lady working
in film production, who put Erika Eleniak on the
path to being an actress. At 10, the petite blonde became a TV star
by modelling for a maker of children's clothes. As an adolescent
she moved on to doing advertisements for shampoos and motorcycles.
Then Erika
Eleniak plunged into drugs and alcohol. Salvation came
by chance on a Santa Monica beach. She was only 17 when she got
to know Steve Ferguson. When she was 18 he signed her up to Alcoholics
Anonymous and helped her through her detoxification. The situation
became complicated when Robert (Steve's father) and Erika's mother
got married. There was even talk of Erika's marriage,
but she never married Steve.
In 1989 Erika
Eleniak wanted to be in Playboy and asked Steve to
contact her with a Playboy photographer. He accepted Erika and she
adorned July '89 issue Playboy in a provocative series of nautical
studies. Year 1989 was very important to Erika Eleniak.
She won her seminal role in Baywatch which demonstrated she can
"do more than just act the dumb blonde". While working
on the the Baywatch series, Erika met Billy Warlock. Neither of
them were single, but their friendship slowly changed into love.
He was the reason why Erika Eleniak ended up leaving
the show only after two seasons. But they relation hit the rocks,
maybe because Billy confessed: "I can't bear anyone else to
see her body".
Her return to the
movie scene was shattering. In 1992, she came to public notice in
the movie "Under Siege" with Steven Seagal. The film was
a huge success. She can be seen again in "Chasers", with
a scene that seems to have made an impression on most of the masculine
population of the United States. William McNamara, her partner in
this film, was also in her life. Her relationship with Billy Warlock,
which was considered solid, fizzled out, without anyone really knowing
why. Then Erika Eleniak filmed another movie with
William called "A Girl in the Cadillac". Erika also tried
what in takes to play in an interactive game named "Panic in
the Park", which was to my opinion very poor. While she was
awaiting her charming prince, "I go out a lot with many different
friends, but there isn't one that I would want to marry. Yet, I
would like to get married. I can easily imagine myself living on
a ranch in Montana with a family." she was filming. She played
in "A Pyromaniac's Love Story", "Bordello of Blood",
"87th Precinct: Heatwave" etc. Then in 1997 she finally
found her prince.
His name is Philip
Goglia and they got married in the beginning of March 1998. Looks
like Erika is catching her second breath with as many as 4 projects
scheduled to be released this year.
