The trailer for the Baywatch reboot, which will air in January, was released this week, showing a new cast of lifeguards saving lives in a montage of golden sands and gleaming white teeth set to the iconic Baywatch drumbeats. The cast have been out in Cannes making noise for the show. But what of the original group of lifeguards, who made it such an enormous hit that at one point it was the most-watched TV show on Earth with 1.1 billion viewers?
David Hasselhoff
Now 74, the Mitch Buchannon actor was the show's bona fide star as the smouldering lifeguard, master of staring into the middle distance and wearing an unzipped jacket with no shirt on. Already established on telly by the time Baywatch rolled around thanks to Knight Rider, David swapped his talking car for the beaches of LA County and never looked back. When the show's fortunes wobbled he stepped in with his own money, took on a role as producer and, along with the show, enjoyed years of success.
The Hoff's music career also blossomed with his song Looking For Freedom, which he performed at the Berlin Wall on New Year's Eve 1989, reaching No1 in Germany for eight weeks. In 2002 the dad-of-two admitted having treatment for alcohol addiction saying: "When you have a problem you have got to take care of it." He went on to appear as a judge on Britain's Got Talent and united him with third wife Hayley Roberts. The couple met in 2011 when she asked for his autograph in Cardiff, where he was filming. In return she gave him her number.
Yasmine Bleeth
Baywatch megastar Yasmine, 58, played Caroline Holden, joining the show after a career as a child actress that started at just 10 months' old. She was an instant hit with audiences and was in hot demand among TV bosses for years. The star even had her own swimwear line called, in true Nineties style, Yaz Wear.
However, offscreen Yasmine was facing personal challenges. She battled cocaine addiction and her career nosedived. She met club owner husband Paul Cerrito in rehab in 2000 and the couple are thought to split their time between LA and Arizona. Apart from an appearance in 2021 indie comedy Whack the Don she has stayed out of the spotlight but former Baywatch co-star David Chokachi reported: "She's married and super happy, and I know she's sober and doing great."
Pamela Anderson
If anyone did as well from Baywatch as the Hoff, it was Pammy, 59, who will forever be famous as beach bombshell CJ Parker. She appeared in the show's peak years, joining in the second series in 1992 and staying until 1997. While on the show, home videos of Pamela with her then-husband Tommy Lee were stolen and released as a sex tape.
Reality TV beckoned after Baywatch and she appeared on Dancing With The Stars, America's Strictly, and in films including Barb Wire and last year's rebooted Naked Gun alongside Liam Neeson, who she briefly dated. She is also a renowned animal activist, famously posing topless with her back to the camera as part of PETA's successful I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur campaign. Pammy said: "I was sick of talking about my boyfriends and my boobs all the time. But I thought if I can attach it to animal activism or activism for the environment, then it meant something."
Traci Bingham
Actress and model Traci, now 58, became a huge star on Baywatch playing Jordan Tate from 1996 until 1998. She went on to forge a career appearing in reality TV shows, among them the UK's Celebrity Big Brother. She finished in sixth place in the 2006 series that was won by Chantelle Houghton where she had the good grace to seem only slightly bemused by Michael Barrymore.
Twice-married Traci also won the VH1 show The Surreal Life: Fame Games, taking the top prize of $100,000. The star, an animal rights activist like Pamela Anderson, still describes herself on Instagram today as an "original Baywatch babe".
Jason Momoa
Movie star Jason was 19 when he made his Baywatch debut in 1999, the year that the series moved from California to Hawaii during one of its many reinventions. He bagged the role of headstrong lifeguard Jason Ioane and was a huge hit. He began dating actress Simmone Jade Mackinnon, who played Allie Reese on the show, and they stayed together for six years, long after the show ended.
His career went from strength to strength - and so did he, building a muscular physique for roles as Khal Drogo in Game Of Thrones and Conan the Barbarian. In 2016 Jason, now 47, made his first appearance in perhaps his best-known role, as Aquaman. See, these Baywatch types never can stay away from the water.
Nicole Eggert
Summer Quinn actress Nicole, 54, joined Baywatch in its third series, but later insisted she thought she'd auditioned for a spin-off about high school kids. She recalled thinking: "Oh my God, we're going to be in a bathing suit all day every day?" on her first day. She later had breast implants - what she described as "a stupid 18-year-old decision" - and left the drama after two series, later appearing on TV shows including 2010's Celebrity Fit Club and diving show Splash.
In 2023, she was diagnosed with stage 2 invasive cribriform carcinoma, a rare form of breast cancer, after experiencing unexplained weight gain and pain in her left breast. Nicole had a double mastectomy after which surgeons performed a reconstruction. Speaking in November she said: "I'm good right now. I'm testing negative for any disease. So, that's fabulous. It's a month-to-month thing. So it's like, I get a clear bill of health, and then I enjoy the rest of the month, and then we do it all over again. So you know, it never kind of ends."
Alexandra Paul
Alexandra, 63, was Stephanie Holden in Baywatch, older sister of Yasmine Bleeth's Caroline and David Hasselhoff's character Mitch's soulmate. The character was written out after five series when she died by being squashed by a ship during a daring sea rescue, but Alexandra thrived, appearing in all sorts of things including - briefly - Mad Men in 2008.
She married triathlon coach Ian Murray in 2000 and has tackled marathons and Ironman contests and spoken out about subjects including human overpopulation and animal welfare. Alexandra claims in the past 10 years to have rescued "piglets, calves, chickens and dogs from lives of misery and confinement" and been arrested six times insisting: "Compassion is not a crime."
David Charvet
David, 54, joined Baywatch as Matt Brody in 1992 and dated Pamela Anderson for two years. He later married another American TV star, Brooke Burke, but they split after seven years. Though he appeared in other dramas including Melrose Place, he soon did a Hasselhoff and launched a major European pop career. Charvet returned to France, where he was born, and released three studio albums, selling 2.5 million copies.
He recently hinted at a role in the new Baywatch, saying: "That's a family that I started 25 years ago, maybe 30 if I'm going to make myself feel really old. I'll definitely be watching it. We've had talks about possibly doing the show. We're still talking, and we'll see what happens." He recently made a return to TV as one of 15 celebrities appearing on the fifth season of Special Forces: World's Toughest Test, saying: "My children have never seen me on television."
