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Carmen Electra was born in Cincinnati (Ohio) on April 20, 1972. Of course, back then she was Tara Leigh Patrick, just a little girl growing up in White Oak, Ohio. At the age of 9, she was selected for the School for Creative and Performing Arts. While she was there she took singing lessons, and by her teenage years, she was dancing in musicals and doing her own choreographing for the school's theater ensemble. Her goal was to eventually make it out to Los Angeles and get a record deal, and at age fifteen, she took her first big step. She moved out to Minneapolis to stay with her sister and half sister, and earned money acting as a model for the Target department stores. Four years later, she packed up shop and moved to L.A., changed her name to Carmen Electra, and one week later, she met the artist formerly known as Prince. For all practical purposes, she had just been "discovered".
In 1992, after meeting and auditioning for Prince, Carmen was signed to his Paisley Park Records label. Despite the fact that Prince took her under his wing (includingpromotions for her album in Rolling Stone and on MTV) her first album was a dud. The video for the single "Go-Go Dancer" was seldom seen on MTV, and when the 12" single hit the stores in June (1992) it almost went straight to the bargain bin.In 1995, Carmen reinvented herself and appeared on the Nickelodeon show ALL THAT. In March of 1996, Carmen posed nude for Playboy and did a Playboy video, PLAYBOY CHEERLEADERS, in which she sings the show stopper ‘2-4-6-8.' Also in 1996, Carmen hosted MTV's Loveline - only a glimpse of things to come.
On October 4, 1996, Lisa Berger (MTV's senior vice president of original programming) announced that Carmen had been selected to replace Jenny McCarthy on the MTV show SINGLED OUT. The deal was for at least 65 episodes Since that announcement, Carmen was signed on to replace Pamela Anderson on BAYWATCH, she has appeared in a comic book, appeared as a national spokesperson for Budweiser. She filmed a small role in the independent feature DUST AND STARDUST, a movie about making it and not making it in Hollywood. In 2000 She played in scary movie. Carmen currently lives in Los Angeles, and the last we heard, she was definitely having the last laugh.
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