Erika Eleniak was a top Hollywood pinup 30 years ago – thanks to her blonde bombshell looks which saw her likened to icons Jayne Mansfield and Kim Novak.
The siren made her film debut in Steven Spielberg‘s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial in 1982, and she later changed up her image as a Playboy Playmate for Hugh Hefner.
The 56-year-old film and television star is best known for slipping into a red swimsuit to star on Baywatch for three years, from 1989 to 1992.
She played Shauni McLain, the original female lead in the show’s first two seasons.
Three decades on, the actress has a striking new look as she is covered in tattoos – with Eleniak showing off her body art in a new photo from the set of one of her new films.
Eleniak revealed what propelled her to ink her body in a recent episode of the Still Here Hollywood podcast with Steve Kmetko.
Erika Eleniak was a top Hollywood pinup 30 years ago thanks to her blonde bombshell looks which saw her likened to icons Jayne Mansfield and Kim Novak
The 56-year-old film and television star is best known for slipping into a red swimsuit to star on Baywatch for three years, from 1989 to 1992
She played Shauni McLain, the original female lead in the show’s first two seasons. Seen with Tom McTigue, David Hasselhoff, Billy Warlock, Pamela Bach, Richard Jaeckel, Monte Markham, Jeremy Jackson
She revealed that she started getting tattoos on her back sometime in her ‘late 20s,’ after her stint on Baywatch ended at the start of the third season.
‘Every tattoo that I have is significant of something,’ she said, citing on that had her mother’s name for example.
‘I love tattoos. I love that my body is a canvas to tell my stories,’ she added.
Eleniak was born in Glendale, California, to parents of Ukrainian, Estonian and German descent whose family had previously settled in Canada.
The star was a part of cinematic history in 1982 when she was cast as a girl who kisses E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial child star, Henry Thomas during a classroom scene.
Her next film role was in 1983’s Imps*, which only received a belated release in 2009.
In 1987, she began appearing on television with guest roles on Silver Spoons, Still the Beaver and Boys Will Be Boys.
Baywatch starring David Hasselhoff was enormously successful thanks to beauties like Eleniak as well as Pamela Anderson and Carmen Electra
In 1987, she began appearing on TV with guest roles on Silver Spoons, The New Leave It To Beaver and Boys Will Be Boys. On film, she appeared in the cult classic horror remake The Blob (1988), followed by Under Siege and 1993’s The Beverly Hillbillies adaptation (pictured)
After a multi-year absence, she returned to film to play one of the victims in 1988’s gross-out remake of The Blob, which is now considered a science fiction horror cult classic.
She followed it up with roles in bigger budget films, including the Steven Seagal action film Under Siege, the 1993 film adaptation of The Beverly Hillbillies, the 1995 rom-com A Pyromaniac’s Love Story and the 1996 Tales From The Crypt spinoff film Bordello Of Blood.
Her subsequent films in the late ’90s, 2000s and 2020s were less frequent and were small-budget independent productions.
Eleniak’s most recently film was 2024’s Lolipop Gang, in which she appeared as herself five years after her previous film role.
As she was starting to appear in more high-profile films, she also had a three-episode run opposite Scott Baio on Charles In Charge in 1989 before beginning her stint on Baywatch.
Eleniak seen in a new image from her movie Alchemy In Venice which recently wrapped; the tattoos all over her arms are real
The star flashed her body ink in all its glory during a rare red carpet appearance in August 2024
She appeared in the show’s TV movie pilot Panic At Malibu Pier as Shauni McClain before joining the main cast for the first two seasons.
Her character started up a relationship with Billy Warlock’s character Eddie Kramer, and they married at the beginning of the third season and moved to Australia, ending her time on the series. The actors were also engaged in real life at one point.
The beginning of her Baywatch career in 1989 coincided with her appearing on the cover of the July 1989 issue of Playboy Magazine.
Just before her stint on Baywatch, Eleniak appeared as a Playmate on the July 1989 cover of Playboy Magazine when her roommate, a model for the magazine, introduced her to its photo editor, who encouraged her to model.
Eleniak said she became known as ‘the difficult’ Playmate in the late ’80s because she found shooting for the magazine uncomfortable and bristled at ideas from photographers. ‘I viewed it as a modeling job,’ she clarified on Still Here Hollywood, and she stressed that she always considered herself ‘an actress who did Playboy,’ rather than a real Playmate.
Eleniak later married the bodybuilder Philip Golgia in 1998, but they divorced after just six months. In the early 2000s she began dating the film worker Roch Daigle, and they moved to Calgary, Canada, before tying the knot in 2005 and later welcoming a daughter together.
Erika’s most recent project was narrating an eight-episode podcast series, The Murder Years, from last year, according to IMDb.
