Hoff The Cuff

"I'm actually in my office in Los Angeles and I'm searching around as we speak, looking for Les Miserables that just came to me in the mail,” David Hasselhoff, widely referred to as The Hoff, shares. “It's one of the shows that got away from me. I've always wanted to play Jean Valjean, you know? Have you seen it?” Affirmative. And found some of the non-singers' performances below par. “Richard Gere got away with it in Chicago,” Hasselhoff opines, before bursting into a rather accurate impersonation of Gere singing We Both Reached For The Gun: “'Where'd ya come from?/ Mississipi/And your parents?,' He's doin' it all kinda camp, you know? Instead of just [sings the same segment à la The Hoff] and doing it the proper way. I'm a big Richard Gere fan and I went, 'Oh my god, he can't sing!' I hated it. I couldn't stand it.”

It has to be said that The Hoff's rendition was better, but then again he has trained with vocal coach Frank Wildhorn, who also worked with Celine Dion. “I've got a Broadway voice,” he boasts, “but it's gotten better and better and better, because it's like a muscle. And these people that really know how to sing and really have that talent, it's just like second nature – they're just like a good golfer – they sing beautifully no matter what. They get it in one take! And then, you know, actors like me who became singers: I was given a really good voice but you've got to train it.”

Hasselhoff also has an illustrious career on the small screen to look back on and doesn't take his good fortune for granted. “You're lucky to get one series,” he observes, “I'm lucky to have had three – Young & Restless, a soap opera, then Knightrider and Baywatch – but I mean, god! I'm just blessed because it's really hard to get one. It's hard right now to get back into a series. I'm fighting reality and age, and it's hard for me. I mean, I can certainly do Hoff stuff, or I do a lot of commercials, and I do a lot of parodies and I do good cameos. And I'm doing guest star roles, which get people putting me in the right show.

“One of the stories I tell in my show [An Evening With David Hasselhoff]: I went for an audition once and it was the funniest thing you've ever seen. The entire audition was stars, big stars that were outta work, and it was John Schneider from Dukes Of Hazzard, Bruce Boxleitner from Scarecrow & Mrs King and Harry Hamlin from LA Law and Greg – oh, god! I can't think of his name, from BJ & The Bear.” Greg Evigan? “He's a cool guy, by the way: Greg Evigan,” Hasselhoff adds. “And we all fuckin' started laughin', 'cause here were all multimillionaires, out of work, reading for a third lead for a camera with a casting director – not even a fricken director! And we just got the biggest laugh about it, 'Well things have changed, you know?' And we signed in, I saw the list and I went, 'Bruce is here, John's here,' and we said, 'Oh, Shit!' you know? None of us got it, hahaha.” So who got the part then? “Some unknown… The best part about it is, as you're walking back through 20th Century Fox studios, everybody's comin' out of their cars going, 'It's Knight Rider, Knight Rider, David Hasselhoff, the Knight Rider,' and I wanted to say, 'Yes, the Knight Rider out of work!' It's like, 'Come on, I don't wanna be the Knight Rider. I wanna get a job!' It's a rough business.”

Still, The Hoff has had more jobs throughout his showbiz career than a lot of actor/singer/producer/bodybuilder types. “I think the longest I've been out of work – it's usually right after a show like Knight Rider or Baywatch because you're so typecast. I used to see casting breakdowns and see 'David Hasselhoff type' and I'd think, 'Cool! Here I am! I'm available!' And they'd go, 'No, no, not you,' and I got that all the time… The bigger the part, the harder you fall, I mean, my god! I was up for Superman, I was up for Indiana Jones and I look back on that going, 'Oh my god! Why?' you know? I didn't get it. And when you come down to the wire it's like that: there ain't no second prize.”

Baywatch was cancelled after its first season on NBC. “And then we ended up buying it and then we lasted 11 years,” Hasselhoff explains. “So in 11 years we saw a lotta people come and go, but the ones who stayed, that were original, we are all still in touch. In fact, we're probably gonna get together on a Super Bowl party next weekend. I'm gonna give 'em all a call and, you know, when somebody calls – like, if I call or Pamela [Anderson] calls or Jeremy Jackson, who plays my son, or David Chokachi or Jason Simmons – they make one call and everybody comes. And it's just a way of hanging out because we shared so many great moments together.”

The Hoff may be the most recognised face on television, but his heart belongs to Broadway with lead roles in Grease, The Rocky Horror Show, The Producers, Jesus Christ Superstar, Jekyll & Hyde and Chicago all featuring on his CV. And Hasselhoff is currently in negotiations to star in a musical. “I'm gonna be doing my own show now called 'Hoff The Musical' or 'Baywatch The Musical',” he reveals. “We've been doing a lot of good business with Peter Pan the panto. I do Hoff The Hook. I'm trying to bring it down to Australia next year, in January. Are the kids still out of school then?” A discussion about how popular pantos are in the UK ensues and The Hoff enthuses, “We ran three runs of [Peter Pan] and we broke all the records every time. The show is so good. It's such a good production. It's like a West End musical, you know? And we come in with the crazy Hoff stuff, we do 'Let's Go To The Hoff', 'I'm Looking For Some Hoff Stuff' and 'Jump In My Car' and it's all kind of tongue in cheek and a lot of fun and I would love to bring it down.”

For now, it's An Evening With David Hasselhoff that's being presented Down Under. “We just kinda go where the audience takes us and we really don't know what we're getting into,” he confesses. “I know we're gonna do more rock when we get down there, which is exciting, 'cause we've got some great Aussie rock songs.” Potentially a spoiler alert, The Hoff gives us a scoop on a special guest who may or may not make an appearance during the show. “Mark Holden's with me, he's down there and he's a good friend of mine and, hey! I think he had a song called Be My Lady or something [I Wanna Make You My Lady] – he used to carry a rose around, like, a hundred years ago.” 

David Hasselhoff will be playing the following dates:

Thursday 14 February – The Corner Hotel, Melbourne VIC
Friday 15 February – The Hi-Fi, Sydney NSW
Saturday 16 February – The Hi-Fi, Brisbane QLD
Sunday 17 February – Capitol, Perth WA