As with most child stars, Eleniak’s life took a raucous turn in her teens. “Maybe I partied too hard,” she reminisced in her Playboy pictorial. The actress attended Alcoholics Anonymous at just 17-years-old. Soon after, the starlet’s baby blues were clear, and her ascension to infamy was about to take flight. 

Her first role was a small one, playing “Pretty Girl” in E.T., where her big moment was kissing Elliot, the film’s (human) protagonist. After making a splash in her nautical pictorial for Playboy, the angelic actress and model joined the cast of Baywatch in 1989 for two years, spending much of that time defending her status as an often scantily clad sex symbol. After Baywatch, Eleniak nabbed notable roles in films like Under Siege, Chasers, A Pyromaniac’s Love Story, Beverly Hillbillies and Bordello of Blood. Eleniak has also appeared on TV in shows such as Brooklyn South, Fantasy Island, CSI: Miami, and Desperate Housewives. 

In her 1989 interview, the seraphic bombshell described her ideal weekend as “going to the Colorado River with my honey. We’d have lots of fun in the sun, wild nights, and when we were together, endless laughter.”