TIA CARRERE Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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TIA CARRERE

Name: Tia Carrere                                                                           
Birth name: Althea Rae Duhinio Janairo                                                       
Born: 2 January 1967 Honolulu, Hawaii                                                       
                                                                                             
Tia Carrere (born January 2, 1967) is an American Grammy nominee, actress, model,           
and singer, perhaps most widely known for her role as Cassandra in the feature               
films Wayne's World and Wayne's World 2 and in the TV series Relic Hunter.                   
                                                                                             
Carrere was born Althea Rae Duhinio Janairo in Honolulu, Hawaii, the daughter of             
Audrey, a computer supervisor, and Alexander Janairo, a banker. She is of                   
Filipino, Chinese, Spanish and Hawaiian ancestry. Carrere longed to be a                     
singer as a child. Although she was eliminated during the first round of her                 
1985 Star Search appearance at the age of 17, she was spotted by the parents of             
a local producer while shopping at a Waikiki grocery store and was cast in the b-movie       
Aloha Summer.                                                                               
                                                                                             
Following this initial success, Carrere relocated to Los Angeles and, after                 
working several months as a model, landed a first ever role in the U.S. TV                   
series Airwolf in early 1985. Her first major break though was in the daytime               
soap opera General Hospital. She played the role of Jade Soong Chung from 1985               
to 1987. She also had a guest appearance on The A-Team, which was supposed to               
lead to her joining the cast. Unfortunately, her General Hospital obligations               
prevented her from joining the team. Her character was dropped after one episode,           
and was never mentioned again. She also made guest appearances on the shows                 
MacGyver ("The Wish Child") as a sexy karate instructor as well as a different               
assassin character in a later episode ("Murderer's Sky"), on Anything But Love               
as the adopted daughter of Marty Gold (Richard Lewis), and Married... with                   
Children as Piper Bauman, a rival of Kelly Bundy's who attempted to steal a                 
modeling job from her.                                                                       
                                                                                             
After appearing in the 1991 action film Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man and             
Showdown in Little Tokyo, she emerged into the public spotlight when cast as                 
Cassandra, a rock singer and love interest of Mike Myers' character Wayne in                 
Wayne's World (1992) - a role she reprised the next year in Wayne's World 2. A               
trained singer, Carrere performed all of her own songs in the two films, and the             
Wayne's World soundtrack features her vocals. She turned down a role in Baywatch             
to audition for Wayne's World. In 1992 People magazine named her to its annual "50           
most beautiful people" list.                                                                 
                                                                                             
On November 22, 1992, Carrere married Italian/Lebanese producer Elie Samaha (she             
has since appeared in several of his films - none of which have achieved                     
widespread success). Other roles in prominent films followed her role in Wayne's             
World, however, including the parts of terrorist Juno Skinner in True Lies (a               
1994 Arnold Schwarzenegger action film), a mixed African-Japanese computer                   
expert in Rising Sun (a thriller written by Michael Crichton starring Sean                   
Connery and Wesley Snipes), robber Gina Walker in The Immortals (1995), and                 
secretary Victoria Chappell in High School High (a 1996 parody).                             
                                                                                             
From 1999 to 2002, Tia Carrere starred as archeology professor Sydney Fox in                 
Relic Hunter, a syndicated action-adventure series strongly reminiscent of the               
Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider films and video games. At this time, Carrere was               
featured in lad mag Maxim magazine. Relic Hunter lasted for a total of three                 
television seasons before its cancellation. Carrere then provided the voice of               
Lilo's sister "Nani" in the animated film Lilo and Stitch (2002) and its                     
spinoffs, as well as the voice of Queen Tyr'ahnee from the 2003 Duck Dodgers                 
animated series. She also starred as Ari, a space marine-turned pirate in the               
1995 adventure/puzzle game The Daedalus Encounter.                                           
                                                                                             
She participated as a contestant on the popular reality show Dancing with the               
Stars but after landing on her bottom more than once, she was eliminated on                 
February 3, 2006, placing 6th in the competition overall.                                   
                                                                                             
Despite using a body double for her sex scenes in Showdown in Little Tokyo, and             
her often expressed aversion to on-screen nudity, Carrere posed nude for the                 
January 2003 issue of Playboy magazine. The photos were re-published in the                 
German December 2006 issue of the magazine.                                                 
                                                                                             
In 2007, she was set to have a recurring role on Curb Your Enthusiasm. On                   
October 17, 2007, Carrere appeared in an episode of Back to You. On October 30,             
2007, Carrere appeared in the season premiere of Nip/Tuck.                                   
                                                                                             
Carrere has continued to nurture her singing career. In 1993, her first solo                 
album, Dream, was released, and went platinum in the Philippines. That same year,           
she was featured on the soundtrack of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, performing               
the ending theme, "I Never Even Told You". In August of 2003, Carrere was                   
awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by Philippine president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.       
Her second album, Hawaiiana, was released in June 2007 and takes Carrere back to             
her Hawaiian roots with two-time Grammy Award winner Daniel Ho accompanying her             
on classic solo slack-key guitar and ukulele. The album was nominated for a 2008             
Grammy Award under the category Best Hawaiian Music Album.