Bo Derek

   

Bo Derek

Bo Derek (born November 20, 1956) is an American film actress and model. Derek started modeling to pay for a new surf board, and after a few shoots and a deodorant advertisement found she had a knack for performance. She got herself a Hollywood agent, and on the audition trail met director John Derek, 30 years her senior. John filed for divorce from his wife, actress Linda Evans, and the pair moved to Germany to avoid John being charged with statutory rape under U.S. law due to Bo only being 16. The couple returned to America soon after Bo's 18th birthday, and married in 1976. They remained married until his death in 1998.

 

 

Bo Derek's life style

Her first on screen performance was in Fantasies (1973). Derek turned down a role in the King Kong remake, and also turned down the role of Iris Steensma in Taxi Driver that ultimately went to child actress Jodie Foster, making her second film 1977's Orca: the Killer Whale, in which her character's leg was bitten off when the whale attacked her home on a pier.

Derek first came to prominence when she co-starred in the 1979 Blake Edwards film 10, in which Dudley Moore's character is torn between his love for Julie Andrews and his fascination with Derek. Her appearance shot her to instant stardom and status as a sex symbol. Her beaded and plaited cornrow hairstyle in the film was widely copied and became eponymous. As a result of the film, Bo received a Golden Globe nomination for new star of the year, but lost out to Bette Midler for The Rose.

Some of Bo Derek's subsequent films were not well-received by either the public or critics. For the 1981 film Tarzan, the Ape Man, the producers of the film were actually sued by the Edgar Rice Burroughs Estate over the name of the film, as Derek's role and physique seemed to overshadow the focus on Tarzan himself. She followed this film with the sexually charged Bolero and a subsequent role in her husband's production Ghosts Can't Do It.

She made the first of many appearances in Playboy, starting with the March 1980 issue. Her first pictorial (among others) was photographed by then husband John, on a secluded beach along an unnamed area of the Colorado River. The twelve page spread featured a few with her and her pet greyhound together jogging and sunbathing, as well as her sailing and swimming in the river, all nude. She appeared on the cover in a bikini.

She has the dubious honor of winning three Golden Raspberry Worst Actress Awards for Tarzan, the Ape Man (1981), Bolero (1984) and Ghosts Can't Do It (1990), and was nominated in 2000 as the "Worst Actress of the Century". However, she subsequently made a respectable showing as Jamie Kennedy's mom and Ryan O'Neal's wife in Malibu's Most Wanted (2003). In addition, she can be seen on TV in Fashion House playing one of the main characters, notorious fashion designer Maria Gianni. Derek was a judge at the 2006 Miss Universe pageant.