He never strays too far from the life preservers
There’s someone having an awful lot of fun with actor David Hasselhoff’s image these days, and it happens to be “The Hoff” himself. The 6-foot-4 star of the hugely popular “Baywatch” and “Knight Rider” TV series has been playing himself recently in such varied theatrical fare as “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie” and John Waters’ gleefully filthy “A Dirty Shame.”
Hasselhoff, who lives in Encino with wife Pamela and daughters Taylor-Anne and Hayley, has done several theater and music projects in Europe and the U.S. and costars in “Click,” Adam Sandler’s upcoming flick, as well as the film version of “Knight Rider.” This week found him in Santa Monica shooting a surfside episode of MTV’s “Wild Boyz.”
“Baywatch,” meanwhile, remains the franchise that just keeps on giving. Although “Baywatch: Bakersfield Nights” remains just a rumor at this juncture, Hasselhoff says a musical version of the series, along the lines of Monty Python’s spoofy “Spamalot,” is on the drawing board. But enough about work -- there’s a weekend to think about.
His friends sing too
There are a couple of places that come to mind as being fun places to eat on a Friday night. The Geisha House in Hollywood is just a great, trendy place for sushi and Japanese dishes where I always know I’ll run into someone I know.
At Koi on La Cienega, I love the Kobe beef, but the best thing to do is to ask the waiter to just keep bringing you whatever’s good. You can’t go wrong because the food is perfect -- expensive, but perfect.
After dinner we’ll see if one of our friends is playing anywhere locally. We don’t do the club thing too much out here. We do that overseas or in New York. Here, we’ll go see Seal in Thousand Oaks or chase down someone else locally.
But are there lifeguards?
Early Saturday morning, we’ll grab the kids and head down to the St. Regis resort in Dana Point. It’s the ideal getaway, and the rooms are great. Get the presidential suite if you can swing it.
First on the agenda is hiking down to the beach for a morning swim and checking out the surf. Then come back up and hit the driving range. Or maybe I’ll stop off at the gym for a workout. The spa is fantastic there. Then I’ll check in with the wife and kids and we’ll go down and have a fabulous breakfast by the pool. Later, we’ll rent bicycles and roam around or maybe take a walk down by the Ritz-Carlton and watch the surfers. There are all sorts of little spots around the property that give you a sense of privacy.
I might run into people who recognize me, but if they see me with my family they’ll usually just smile and wave and say, “Hello.” There’s a measure of respect and class that must go along with my 400 years in the business.
Later on Saturday afternoon, we’ll go into Laguna for some shopping. They have all these great shops down there. We’ll look at knickknacks or maybe get some ice cream. Later, we’ll hang around town and have dinner at Sorrento’s. It’s got the best grilled garlic-and-cheese artichokes. I’ll order about three of them.
On Sunday we’ll get up and have a massive brunch there at the St. Regis and then we’ll beat the traffic and head for home. Sunday is usually our day for hanging around the house, so later we’ll end up in my screening room, pop some corn and have some low-carb ice cream and just watch a movie or two.