She made her modeling debut at the age of ten in a tykes' underwear ad. By her teens, she had landed a feature role in the movie of the decade--the lips you see here provided the young hero's first kiss in E.T. Last year, she made her Playboy debut as a cover girl, then sizzled our centerfold as Miss July. And now, at the ripe young age of 20, Erika Eleniak is hotter than ever. "I guess I grew up fast," says the star of NBC's beachin' lifeguard series Baywatch. The show's fast and, if not necessarily loose, certainly suggestive enough to keep millions of viewers glued to their sets every Friday, hoping to see if Erika's bathing suit shrinks when wet. Baywatch has been called NBC's contribution to TV T and A--a show that uses life-and-death drama as a pretext for plots that put its heroine in (A) danger and (B) tight swimsuits. "We don't exploit anyone's body," producer Doug Schwartz told Rolling Stone, which called its piece on the show "Babe Watch." Said Erika, "Look at our bathing suits. We could have gotten really radical, but those are regulation suits." What went unexplained was the crux of the matter: Whether she wears a teeny bikini, a regulation lifeguard suit or a suit of armor, California girl Erika can't help looking radical. And, of course, she fully intends to move on from her role as Shauni McLain on Baywatch to more challenging parts, though she sees no need to apologize, for playing a pretty girl on TV. After all, she owes a debt to the medium; Erika learned how to kiss by watching TV. One time, she was watching The Brady Bunch and saw Bobby getting kissed. "And skyrockets went off," she says. Young Erika tried it. "I kissed this guy and I swear, there were skyrockets." She brings that same sense of purpose to her current work. "People have no idea what it takes to be a lifeguard," she says. "It's also important to show how women deal with the job." Baywatch, she says, "is like St. Elsewhere on the beach." For now, she's delighted to be playing Shauni McLain. As for what the future holds, she has no insider's info. "But I don't want to be under anybody's thumb," says Erika. "I want to do my work, be in charge of my own life and just be a good person." Sounds like the perfect formula to us, Erika.
