Yasmine's GUILTY
(of) PLEASURE!

Yasmine Bleeth is having a ball playing
bad as TITANS vixen Heather

She sleeps with her lover, but marries his millionaire father. This after not letting her fiance kiss her ("Don't touch my makeup!"). Oh, and on the walk down the aisle, she announces she's pregnant by her future stepson! If this was a Jerry Springer episode, it would be time to take out the trash, but this is Beverly Hills and NBC's hot new primetime soap TITANS. Did we mention that it's brought to us thanks to the man behind the primetime soap hits BEVERLY HILLS 90210, DYNASTY and MELROSE PLACE—the ultimate primetime producer Aaron Spelling? Are you hooked yet? We certainly are!
     "What we're trying to promote is escapism. I mean, it's fantasy," says star Yasmine Bleeth, who has the enviable task of playing social-climbing, money-hungry bitch, err, vixen Heather Portman Williams. "You want to sit down after dinner and get away from your everyday life. You want to dream about what could be."
     Yeah, if you want to dream about giving birth to your own husband's grandson!
     But seriously, folks, as campy and over the top as TITANS gets, the part of Heather is a dream role for Bleeth. The actress began her career on soaps, playing ingenues Ryan on RYAN'S HOPE in the late '80s and Lee Ann on ONE LIFE TO LIVE in the early '90s, before graduating to primetime and a string of TV movies. Most notably, Bleeth played BAYWATCH babe Caroline for three seasons, followed by NASH BRIDGES babe Caitlin for two, where she worked very closely with Don Johnson.
     "You know, it's very funny. I've been lucky enough to be working in television for a long time now, and I've always been cast as the good girl—you know, high moral virtue, the girl-next-door. I don't know what took people this long to get it," she tells Update as she gives us a wink. "I love it. When I got the script, Aaron was like, 'So, do you have any questions for me about the character?' I was like, 'No, not really, I get it.' And, you know, I think this part is in every woman. Every woman has this character in her."
     NASH BRIDGES, meanwhile, continues on CBS without its leading lady. Bleeth insists, however, that she did not quit to join the TITANS ensemble. "When I signed on to NASH, it was originally only a two-year contract," she admits, revealing her unusual contract in a business that usually requires you to sign on for a five-to-seven-year run. "It was something I fought for. When you've been in television for kind of a long time, you get a feeling about the lifetime of a character."
     Last year, the actress made herself available for new roles, as her time on NASH came to an end. "A couple of things came by, but when this came along, we fought hard for it," she admits. The actress says she's come close close to joining Spelling shows in the past—reportedly 90210 and PACIFIC PALISADES—but "it never quite worked out right, and this just worked very smoothly."
     Did she play hardball and ask for a limited run on TITANS so she could move on again in two years—if the show lasts that long? "I didn't want to, I didn't try," she insists. "I definitely wanted to do an ensemble show. I see this character differently. I see limitless potential to this kind of character. I don't think there's any obstacles as to where the character can't go at all."
     This primetime soap has other soap stars aside from Bleeth: Jack Wagner (ex-Frisco, GENERAL HOSPITAL), Ingo Rademacher (Ex-Jax, GH) and Casper Van Dien (ex-Ty, OLTL). With whom she will be paired... and can her character sink any lower than she has during the show's first few episodes? "God, you sleep with 100 or 200 men and everybody, you know, judges you," Bleeth says with her tongue firmly planted in cheek. "Unbelievable."
BY DAMON ROMINE