Hoff his rocker
by Jane Fryer
DAVID ‘The Hoff’ Hasselhoff is twirling his sparkly jacket round his head, thrusting his hips (a little stiffly), playing air guitar, winking at the audience and roaring ‘I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR FREEDOM’ into his mic. Behind him on an enormous screen, a much younger Hoff stands astride the ruins of the Berlin Wall, surrounded by a million-strong crowd, wearing a similar sparkly jacket (but this one is made of light bulbs) and belting out the same line, back in 1989.
Two Hoffs, 23 years apart, looking uncannily similar, singing the hit pop song (in Austria and Germany only) he’s always insisted helped bring about the unification of Germany (he’s apparently miffed not to be credited for his contribution in the Checkpoint Charlie Museum). It’s all a bit strange to watch.
All this comes after five minutes of slowmotion running across the stage flanked by two Baywatch-ish blondes (today there are no surgical enhancements bobbing away) and a couple of inflatable palm trees, some surprisingly good singing, a lot of referring to himself in the third person and a spot of brilliantly bad ‘embarrassing dad’ dancing. Some people might consider it all a bit
de trop. But the crowd at the Pleasance Grand at the Edinburgh Festival, who have paid €22 to watch his hour-long show, are beside themselves with joy.
For 50 minutes, teenagers, grannies, widows, students and great groups of forty-something men have been chanting ‘Hoff! Hoff! Hoff! Hoff!’ and yelling ‘He’s the Sultan of the Surf! He’s the Lord of Baywatch!’, jumping about in €3 cardboard Hoff masks and generally having a brilliant time.
Indeed, from the moment he arrived in Edinburgh last week (flanked by the Baywatch babes, Kitt the computerised car from the hit American TV series Knight Rider — in which he also starred — and Hayley Roberts, his minuscule, blonde, 32-year-old, Welsh girlfriend with the teeniest, roundest, highest bottom I’ve ever seen) it’s been mayhem.
BECAUSE there’s something about David Hasselhoff. The 6ft 4in, mahogany- tanned, pearly-toothed, crinkly- eyed actor, singer, talent show judge and recovering alcoholic seems to brings out the best in people.
They’re thrilled for his many successes — thanks to Knight Rider and Baywatch, he is still the Guinness Book of World Records’ most famous TV star on the planet. At the height of his career, he had a weekly audience of 1.1 billion in 142 countries and was worshipped in Austria and Germany, where, for some reason, he found a particular place in people’s hearts.
His fans forgive his Hoffish clumsiness — in the last fortnight he’s referred to Hayley’s parents as ‘ l i ttle hobbits’, likened his fans to zombies and said of Scotland and Scots in general: ‘I just love it. But I can’t understand what you guys are saying at all.’ And they don’t give a fig about his myriad sins.
As 68-year-old widow Maureen Filmer puts it: ‘He just seems like a really nice person — you only need to look at him to know he has a big heart.
‘I liked him in Knight Rider and I used to watch Baywatch with my family.
‘He was so lovely and muscular with that lovely big chest, and so fair. A bit like Cliff Richard.
‘Of course, he’s had a few hiccups and ups and downs, but haven’t we all? I certainly have.’
Maybe. Though I doubt nice that Maureen can compete with The Hoff ’s vitriolic divorce (from second wife of 16 years Pamela Bach), endless restraining orders filed by her, custody battles over his two daughters and allegations of beatings, drug abuse and cosmetic surgery.
And Maureen was probably never ejected from Wimbledon for being drunk and trying (unsuccessfully) to get into the players’ bar by yelling: ‘Do you know who I am? I’m The Hoff!’
Or barred from a flight from Heathrow Airport for being tired and emotional and slumped in a wheelchair at 10am. Or tangled up in a low-slung Tiffany lamp in a London hotel, severing four wrist tendons in the process.
And I’m quite sure she was never captured on film by any of her children lying drunk and topless on a hotel room floor, trying to eat a cheeseburger, with the footage then leaked to YouTube to shame her into giving up alcohol — as the Hoff’s then teenage daughter Taylor-Ann did in 2007.
In any case, it worked. Hallelujah, he’s been sober ever since. Even better, last year he met and fell in love with Hayley, a minimum wage Debenhams shop girl from Glynneath, a small town in southern Wales, whom he met when he was in nearby Cardiff filming Britain’s Got Talent. He thought she looked ‘like a young Farrah Fawcett’. It took him a while to convince her the 28-year age gap wasn’t insurmountable.
He whisked her off on a spa break in Switzerland — ‘I didn’t want her to think this was just about getting, you know, having . . . sex’ — and then to live at his home in Los Angeles, where they mostly watch box sets and sunbathe.
Though as a favour to Hayley’s sister, who works in a Cardiff bakery, he did pop back for the shop’s Christmas party last year (‘I think we were the thinnest people there,’ he said in a recent interview) and almost caused a riot.
Back on stage, his ‘Hilarious And Intimate Evening’ is certainly hilarious — a mixture of l aughing with him ( he’s surprisingly funny and brilliantly selfdeprecating) and at him as he prances around and sings and dances. But it’s not remotely intimate.
There’s nothing personal, nothing to show what makes him tick. None of the ups or downs.
Not a mention of his ‘very close’ friendship with Princess Diana that could have been something else ‘if circumstances had been different’, as he claimed at the launch of his autobiography, Making Waves, in 2006.
OR HIS long-held belief that he was ‘chosen’ by higher forces to play the role of crime-fighting Michael Knight in Knight Rider because, as the TV show’s slogan goes: ‘One man really can make a difference’. There is, though, plenty of audience participation. A girl called Alisha is summoned from the crowd to dance and sit on his knee.
During a raucous ‘Do The Limbo’ song, at least 100 people are on stage limboing, high-fiving, grinning like idiots and desperately trying to hug him. A woman in a Knight Rider T-shirt is twirling round in her wheelchair.
Then suddenly, about halfway through, he interrupts himself to introduce us to a man in a wheelchair in the front row.
‘Hey! Look at this guy! He’s got more guts than all of us. What’s his name?’
‘Barry!’ shouts the lady sitting next to him. ‘He’s your biggest fan.’
‘Buddy! Hey, Buddy! How’re you doing, Buddy?’ ‘No. Barry! ‘Buddy? Biddy? Spell it out!’ ‘B. A. R. R. Y.’ ‘Ah! How you doing, Barry? Give it up for Barry. These are the real heroes, man.
I know what this guy’s about. He’s got cerebral palsy, but he knows what’s going on. He’s a cool dude. All right, Barry!
‘Anyway, the next song is by the coolest R&B singer of all time and unfortunately he had a horrible car accident and ended up in a wheelchair, too, and passed away a few years ago. So now let’s hear it for Teddy Pendergrass!’
A muted gasp from the audience. Did he really link poor Barry with singer Teddy Pendergrass because they were both in wheelchairs? Surely not? Only The Hoff.
One question that springs to mind is: given that the Hoff’s worth more than €125 million and is 60 and in love, why doesn’t he just sit back and take things easy with Hayley and her amazing bottom?
At €22 a ticket, the sales for this show probably won’t even cover the cost of shipping over from America his trusty black Pontiac car from Knight Rider and the Baywatch Babes. Whatever.
Finally, a surprisingly brief 57 minutes later and after a rousing and kilted finale of the Proclaimers’ I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) — sadly, there was no repeat of the kilt malfunction that apparently caused so much hilarity the night before — some appalling and very knobbly-kneed Scottish dancing flanked by the Baywatch Babes (in hot satin mini dresses with tartan sashes) and him high-kicking his skinny legs through a polystyrene Berlin Wall labelled ‘Hoff The Wall’, that’s it. Or it would be for an ordinary performer, who’d sidle out of the back door and slink off to his luxury hotel for a nice cold beer and a hot shower with the gorgeous Hayley, who’s glowing in sprayon leggings and a teeny jacket.
But not The Hoff. Oh no! Fifteen minutes later he pops back out in a blue suit and impossibly undone shirt to meet his exuberant fans. He spends the next hour posing for photos, signing books, Hoff masks, Y-fronts, swimming trunks and the enormous tattoo of his face that adorns the upper right arm of 38- year- old Kirsten McLoughlin from Glasgow. She is in a wheelchair and is wearing a Knight Rider T-shirt and Hoff pendant.
‘I’m his biggest fan. I met him six years ago at a book signing in London and he signed it then, but there’s always such a queue, so I never got to have a good conversation with him,’ she says. I was walking back then — he doesn’t know about the wheelchair. I just hope I get to see him.’
No need to worry. After grinning at Hayley like a soppy dog, lovely Hoff makes a beeline for her.
‘Of course I remember your tattoo! How awesome. You’re from Glasgow? I’d better give you a Glasgow kiss then!’ he chirps and promptly pretends to head-butt her.
‘Oh my God, how brilliant,’ she squeaks afterwards, eyes filled with tears. ‘I’m so happy.’
Meanwhile, an argument is hotting up in the photo queue.
‘ What was that whol e bit about the Berlin wall?’ asks Paul, one of t he more enthusiastic limbo dancers.
‘ Surely he wasn’t pretending it was him who knocked down the Berlin Wall? I know for a fact it was Mikhail Gorbachev and his policy of Glasnost. Talk about the worst rewrite in history!’
Oh dear, s o would he still recommend the show?
‘Absolutely! It was bloody brilliant. Best thing I’ve ever seen.
‘Hoff the charts! But he’s only on for a week, so you have to hurry.’