Baywatch is back in the news. No, it (unfortunately) has nothing to do with the 13th anniversary of the modern-day classic Gigli. Rather, it’s because a Baywatch movie is coming out next year, and it stars the most attractive collection of people — Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach, Priyanka Chopra, Charlotte McKinney, and Ilfenesh Hadera — in film history. Don’t tell that to David Hasselhoff, though; he’s very sensitive about his looks. The Hollywood Reporter spoke to producers Michael Berk and Douglas Schwartz about the original syndicated series that ran from 1989 to 2001 (!), and they said “The Hoff” was against Pamela Anderson’s casting.
“David said, ‘I don’t want a girl that’s been in Playboy,'” Berk recalls. “He said, ‘Children watch this show.’” Schwartz thinks Hasselhoff had slightly different concerns. “She had these enormous breasts,” he says, “and David thought he would be upstaged by everyone looking at her breasts. Which is what happened.” (Via)
Children watched Baywatch? Sure, and teenagers read Playboy for the articles. Hasselhoff obviously lost the Pam Anderson battle, but he won the Leonardo DiCaprio war. The Oscar winner, then 15 years old, auditioned for the part of Hasselhoff’s son, but “David thought he was too old to play his son. David thought it would make him look older. He had a lot of concerns of that type.” The role went to a nine-year-old who, as far as I can tell, never fought a bear.
It’s a good thing Hasselhoff stepped in. If DiCaprio had been on Baywatch, he wouldn’t have found his breakout role, as Darlene’s uncredited classmate in a single episode of Roseanne. I think Leo owes Hoff a hit from his vaporizer.
(via The Hollywood Reporter)
