Asateen, Raye Hollitt did more than kick the can with the boys in her neighborhood. "In fact," she boasts, "I kicked their little butts." Even then the Pennsylvania tomboy was acting a lot like her future alter ego, Zap, the female head hunk on American Gladiators. The popular weekly coliseum games (a cult hit in 50 countries) combine the sexy sweatiness of roller derby with the hype of pro wrestling and the futuristic look of Mad Max. Zap, who was arguably the show's most alluring perspirer, outlasted the rest of the original stars--but now she's hung up her jousting stick after six seasons. "I'm lucky to have survived," admits Raye, who despite countless close calls has emerged blissfully unscathed. Indeed, her fast track to stardom has been a wild ride. After graduating from high school with honors in accounting, she supported herself as a paralegal ("I'm so incredibly anal I love that kind of job") while entering bodybuilding competitions. Then Raye went for the gold: She headed west to tackle the iron-pumping scene in Los Angeles, matching flexes with the best. "My plane landed, and I asked the taxi driver to take me to the mecca of bodybuilding." That meant Gold's Gym in Venice Beach.
Before you could clean and jerk, Raye muscled her way to a bodybuilding title (Ms. Los Angeles), manhandled John Ritter in Blake Edwards' Skin Deep ("John was great, especially in our nude scenes") and then bagged the role of the brutal but beautiful Zap. "Gladiators was something America needed at the time of its inception," reflects Raye, "a sporting event any housewife or waitress could audition for." But what was once "amateur friendly" soon became serious competition. "Now it's like football without the pads," says Raye.
These days, with the school of hard knocks behind her, Raye much prefers to sip carrot juice and enjoy sunrises from the terrace of her home on a Malibu bluff. Yet in some ways, the athlete formerly known as Zap has remained true to her killer instincts, notably in her stint on TV's J.A.G. "I played a Navy pilot," she says, "and shot enemy planes out of the sky." But before we could ask for a body count, Raye was gone. See you later, Gladiator.
