Electra

Carmen Electra's opening scene in last summer's hit Scary Movie stole the show.

It's something the Singled Out and Baywatch veteran is used to doing. The spoof flick also pokes fun at her relationship with the Artist Currently Known as Prince, who discovered Cincinnati native Tara Patrick in 1991, dubbed her Carmen Electra and in 1993 released her first CD on Paisley Park Records. Then, in 1996, Carmen electrified everyone with her first Playboy pictorial, in which she denied any romance with the Purple One. So what did she call him back when his name was a glyph? "I didn't call him anything because I didn't want to address him by the wrong name and upset him," she says. "You don't just yell out, To, Prince!' He's kind of like royalty."

Carmen has endured her share of emotional turmoil recently, including the deaths of her mother and sister within a week of each other and her brief marriage to Dennis Rodman. Carmen is candid about Rodman, and she's eager to set the record straight. "I met Dennis at a time when, instead of going home and taking care of my mother, I decided to hide my pain and pretend like I was a strong person and nothing could really affect me," she says. "I'm attracted to bad boys---I love the excitement and drama. But I saw the little boy in him and his vulnerable side, and that's the person I fell in love with. Later on, it became unhealthy. I had to grow up and say, 'OK, this isn't good for me anymore and I have to step back.' It doesn't mean I don't love him---I love him more than I've loved anyone in my life, besides my mother. We're still friends and he still calls me every day."

If Carmen could turn back time, would she do anything (concluded on page 234)Electra(continued from page 178) differently? "I feel really guilty because I neglected my mother," she says. "I was hoping that when I made enough money, I would take her shopping on Rodeo Drive, buy her a new car, take her to get her hair and nails done and just show her the life she never had. I never got to do that with her, so my dad gets it all instead. One time, I took him to get his nails done and he thought he was going to die," she giggles. "He kept saying, 'Guys don't do this.' I said, 'Dad, let the woman massage your hands and cut your nails.' He works construction and plays guitar, and so he couldn't imagine that guys would actually go out and have this sort of thing done."

Thanks to the career boost from Scary Movie, Carmen can continue pampering her dad with paychecks from her sophomore album and two new movies. In Perfume, she stars opposite Omar Epps in one of three stories. "It's basically hiphop meets fashion," she says. "It's all improvised. The movie has a story line, but it didn't have much of a script. We would go into the scene, really open up and just react off each other." In the romantic comedy Getting Over Allison, starring Kirsten Dunst, Carmen milks a cameo as a dominatrix for all it's worth. "I dressed in dominatrix clothes with a whip and all that stuff," she says. "It was so much fun to get up onstage, take control and have an excuse to do it, because I could never do that sort of thing in real life."

Now that the Rodman hoopla has subsided, is she currently unattached? "I'm not dating anybody right now," she says. "I wish I were, but it's hard to have a relationship with someone who's famous. I still want someone exciting and fun, but maybe just a little more normal, with a regular job. People assume I'm a crazy party animal. But I'm not. Of course I love to go out, and I'm the girl who will get up and dance on a table in the middle of a club. But now I'm all about balance. I had to face the loss of my mother and grieve, and once I started doing that, I realized I don't need to go out all the time and be surrounded by people. I don't need a boyfriend. I've always put a lot into other people, but now I'm going to be a little more selfish and focused on Carmen.

"I've realized that Tara is the sweet, innocent little girl in me---the one who's afraid of rejection. Carmen Electra is the side of me that says, 'Fuck it. I can do this. I'm not afraid of anything.' She's the more confident person who will go out there and get the job. But when I spend time alone, I'm still just Tara. I always come back to being who I am."