Yasmine Bleeth

Yasmine Bleeth (born June 14, 1968) is an American actress and model. Her television roles include Caroline Holden on Baywatch, Ryan Fenelli on Ryan's Hope, and LeeAnn Demerest on One Life to Live. Early life and career Bleeth was born in New York City, the daughter of Carina, a model, and Philip Bleeth, a business proprietor. Her father Philip is of Russian-Jewish and German-Jewish descent. Her mother was a Pied-Noir from Algeria, with French ancestry; she was Catholic. Phil Bleeth was associated with a group of friends that included Arlo Guthrie and Alice Brock (of "Alice's Restaurant" fame) around the time of Yasmine's birth. Yasmine's earliest known acting role was in a Johnson & Johnson's No More Tears baby shampoo television commercial at age 10 months in 1969. At the age of six, she appeared on Candid Camera. Later that year she appeared in a Max Factor cosmetic advertising campaign with model Cristina Ferrare. Her work in this campaign caught the eye of fashion photographer Francesco Scavullo, who subsequently included her and her mother in his book entitled Scavullo Women. Total Film magazine quoted Bleeth stating, "When I was a little girl I used to have to force boys to kiss me. My toughest friend had to hold them down." In 1980, 12-year-old Bleeth was cast her first film role, opposite Buddy Hackett in the feature film Hey Babe!. In 1983, she was in a commercial with Puerto Rican group Menudo. At age 16, she began appearing as grown up Ryan Fenelli on the daytime soap opera Ryan's Hope in February 1985 until the soap's final episode on January 13, 1989. A few months after that show's 1989 cancellation, Bleeth's mother, Carina Bleeth, was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer. She died within a year at the age of 47, after which Bleeth dealt with her grief, thus: "I stayed home, watching cooking shows, taking walks." She turned down acting offers for eight months, but then won the role of LeeAnn Demerest on the daytime soap opera One Life to Live.