David Michael Hasselhoff (born July 17, 1952) is an American actor, singer, television producer and businessman. He is best known for his lead roles as Michael Knight in the popular 1980s U.S. series Knight Rider and as L.A. County Lifeguard Mitch Buchannon in the series Baywatch . Hasselhoff also produced Baywatch for a number of seasons in the 1990s up until 2001, when the series ended with Baywatch Hawaii . Hasselhoff also crossed over to a music career during the end of the 1980s and the early 1990s. He was noted for his performance at the Berlin Wall in 1989. He enjoyed a short lived success as a singer primarily in German-speaking Europe. More recently, Hasselhoff has been involved with talent shows such as NBC's America's Got Talent in 2006. Hasselhoff's autobiography, Making Waves , was released in the United Kingdom in September 2006.
Career
Early career
Hasselhoff portrayed Dr. William "Snapper" Foster, Jr. on the soap opera The Young and the Restless from 1975 to 1982. In 1979 he played the role of Simon in Starcrash . He later went on to star as Michael Knight in the Glen A. Larson-created series Knight Rider from 1982 to 1986 (a role he would reprise in Knight Rider 2000 (1991) and cameo in 2008's Knight Rider TV film).
Hasselhoff describes Knight Rider as more than a TV show: "It's a phenomenon. It's bigger than Baywatch ever was." On the success of Knight Rider — "It's because it was about saving lives, not taking lives, and it was how one man really can make a difference. And we had a blast making it, and we made sure nobody died on the show; we made sure nobody ever drowned on Baywatch ." (However, in the 1982 two hour pilot "Knight Of The Phoenix", Michael Long's partner Mugsy is shot and dies in the parking lot.) He describes the acting he has done as "a little more difficult than if you had a regularly well-written script – like, if I was going to be in, say, Reservoir Dogs , or The Godfather , or Dances with Wolves or Lawrence of Arabia or ER , I had to talk to a car."
European popularity
While his star rose, fell and rose again in the US, Hasselhoff's popularity remained a little longer in Europe during the end of the 80s. Hasselhoff had one number-one hit in the German pop charts in 1989 ("Looking for Freedom"), which very much resonated with the fall of the Berlin Wall at that time, and two more top-ten hits in 1989 and 1993.
Baywatch
Hasselhoff returned to television on Baywatch which premiered in 1989. Although it was canceled after only one season, he believed the series had potential, so Hasselhoff revived it for the first-run syndication market in 1991, investing his own money and additionally functioning as executive producer. His contract stipulated royalties to be paid to him from the rerun profits, which gave him the financial liberty to buy back the rights to Baywatch from NBC.
In its second incarnation, Baywatch was much more successful. It ran in syndication for another ten seasons. It was also well received internationally and has been shown in over 140 countries around the world. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Baywatch is the most watched TV show in the world, with over 1.1 billion viewers. Hasselhoff on the appeal of Baywatch : "I believe the camera photographs your aura, and it also photographs your heart. And I cast Baywatch that way. If you look at Baywatch , just about everybody on that show — even Pamela Anderson — has got a great heart."
This success combined with his royalties and his other ventures have placed Hasselhoff's fortune at more than $100,000,000.
Later career
In 1994, Hasselhoff was inducted into the Lyons Township High School Hall of Fame.
Also in 1994, Hasselhoff was scheduled to perform a concert on pay-per-view from Atlantic City. The concert was expected to help reignite his singing career in the United States. On the night of his concert, O.J. Simpson was involved in a police chase in southern California. Viewership of the concert was significantly lower than expected, due to the live coverage of the chase. Since then, Hasselhoff has not attempted another concert.
In 1996, Hasselhoff was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1997, he did a duet with Asia's Songbird, Regine Velasquez. The song was used as the main theme for his 1998 movie Legacy . In the film, he was joined by Filipina actresses, Donita Rose and Chin Chin Gutierrez. The film was shot in the Philippines.
Hasselhoff made his Broadway debut in 2000 in the title role of Jekyll & Hyde . In August 2001 he hosted an event at the Conga Room, in Los Angeles honoring the Latin rock band Renegade for record sales in excess of 30 million units worldwide, taking the stage with the Latin rockers and singing in Spanish. Beginning in July 16, 2004, he played the lead role in London performances of Chicago for three months.
Hasselhoff has made several self-parodic appearances in movies. He had a major appearance in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie , released November 19, 2004, starring as himself (though very much in bygone Baywatch character) and meeting SpongeBob and Patrick (His full name is heard once in the movie. He is referred to as "Hasselhoff"). Hasselhoff also had another short appearance in the movie Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story as the dodgeball coach to the German national dodgeball team. Berating his team after being eliminated from a tournament, he shouts "Ihr seid alle Schweine !" (translated: "You are all pigs !", a common German insult) and smashes a photo of himself in his Baywatch attire. In 2004's Eurotrip , Hasselhoff appears in a fantasy sequence performing his early 90s hit single "Du". In a cameo as himself in John Waters' 2004 effort A Dirty Shame , Hasselhoff defecates in an airplane's washroom. The 2006 Adam Sandler film Click is the first film in which Hasselhoff plays a character, as Sandler's despicable boss. Hasselhoff also appeares in an episode of Wildboyz. In 2007 he again played himself in the Jamie Kennedy comedy Kickin' It Old Skool , teaching Kennedy's character (who revives from a coma he entered at age 12) how to make out with his girlfriend and loaning him KITT for his date.
In his music video for "Jump in My Car", Hasselhoff again demonstrates a penchant for self-parody, this time of his performance as Michael Knight in Knight Rider . The car in the video was a black Pontiac Trans Am with a pulsing LED and an interior nearly identical to that of K.I.T.T. (this video was shot in Sydney, Australia and used a right hand drive KITT replica), including an aptly-timed use of K.I.T.T.'s seat ejection system. The video plays to a skit where he asks one of three girls to "jump in his car" to take her home. The girl initially refuses but then gets in so long as he behaves politely. She suggests that he should drive quickly, because she lives down south, "about 84 miles". When she insists she is not joking, he asks her to leave the vehicle, but she refuses, so he resorts to using the ejector seat to cause her to exit.
Hasselhoff presented a musical award with Gretel Killeen for the Australian Recording Industry Association on Sunday October 23, 2005 in Sydney. He was recently signed to Pepsi appearing in a massive outdoor campaign in January 2006.
Hasselhoff has also become something of an Internet phenomenon, mostly as a subject of fun. Numerous websites have appeared and there is currently a campaign to get him a number one single in the UK.
In May 2006, Hasselhoff returned to the spotlight after he was mentioned in an interview of Dirk Nowitzki, an NBA star playing for the Dallas Mavericks and a native of Germany. Nowitzki was asked what he does to concentrate when shooting foul shots. Dirk replied that he sings "Looking for Freedom" to himself. He meant this as a joke but it was thought to be a serious answer. Shortly thereafter, Hasselhoff attended the May 26, 2006 Mavericks home playoff game where they faced the Phoenix Suns in the NBA Western Conference Finals. Interviewed by Craig Sager, Hasselhoff stated he was as much a fan of Nowitzki as Nowitzki was a fan of him. In The 2006 NBA Finals, fans of the Miami Heat in the American Airlines Arena held up facial photos of Hasselhoff and chanted his name when Nowitzki went to the foul line.
Late 2006, a musical based on his life called David Hasselhoff: The Musical will open in Australia before moving to the United States. Hasselhoff describes it as "totally campy".
On August 2, 2006, Hasselhoff proclaimed himself king of the internet in a tongue-in-cheek advertisement commercial for Pipex.
In September 2006 he appeared in a radio interview with Gerard Gilroy on The Breakfast Show on Dublin's Newstalk 106, pushed his book on The Tubridy Tonight Show on RTE1, and sang and spoke to Grant Lauchlan of stv.tv, where he revealed that he would like to play a concert in the future at Scotland's Edinburgh Castle.
In November 2006, Mel Brooks announced Hasselhoff would portray Roger DeBris, the director of the Nazi musical Springtime for Hitler , in the Las Vegas p
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