Kelly Monaco

Kelly Monaco

Kelly Marie Monaco (born May 23, 1976 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American model, actress, and reality television contestant.

Early life
Kelly Monaco was born on May 23, 1976, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the third of five daughters. Monaco grew up with a love of sports such as soccer, swimming, and track, and worked as a lifeguard for several years while attending a community college until she broke into modeling.

Modeling

In 1996, Monaco sent nude modeling photos of herself to Playboy and soon became a Playmate. In April 1997 she became the Playboy Playmate of the Month. Throughout her tenure with Playboy in the 1990's, Monaco was also featured in many Playboy Special Edition publications.

She was featured in the November 2005 issue of Playboy, however the pictoral consisted of previously unpublished pictures from her Miss April 1997 shoot.

After moving on from Playboy in the 1990's, Monaco has significantly distanced herself from Playboy, possibly as a move to "clean up" her image. More recently, Monaco has made numerous cover appearances in other lad mags such as FHM and Maxim magazine. Along with her Maxim feature in 2005, the magazine also awarded her 13th place on their annual Hot 100 List in May 2006.

Acting

Her first television role was on the nightime drama Baywatch from 1997 to 1998. In addition to playing the role of "Susan on "BayWatch", Monaco also was Carmen Electra's body double at times, as Electra could not swim. Monaco also had minor roles in the late 1990s films BASEketball, Idle Hands, and Mumford.

Monaco had two roles on the supernatural television soap opera Port Charles: Olivia “Livvie” Locke Morley (1999–2003) and Tess Ramsey (2002–2003). When that program ended, she joined the cast of soap opera General Hospital as possible con woman Samantha “Sam” McCall in September 2003.

In 2003 Monaco was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for role on Port Charles. In 2006 Monaco was again nominated for a Daytime Emmy, this time for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Sam McCall on General Hospital.

Dancing with the Stars
In Summer 2005, Monaco appeared as a contestant in the highly-rated American version of the television series Dancing with the Stars. Despite her perceived lack of height and an initial lack of grace, she improved each week and became a popular underdog. In the quarterfinal round samba, she coolly recovered from a mid-dance wardrobe malfunction without becoming exposed on live national television. On July 6, 2005, Kelly Monaco won the Dancing With The Stars competition.

This was viewed by some as an upset, whereas others suspected ballot-box stuffing, a frequent complaint of Internet-based voting. This was discussed briefly on a Larry King Live interview with several members of the show, but was not pursued by runner-up John O'Hurley, who took the high road and declared that participation and viewer popularity was more important to him than winning. However, it was decided to have a "Dance-Off" special as a follow up to this controversial result, with a presumably lessened chance of Internet voting skewing the results. It was held "live" on September 20 and results were announced two days later. This time, O'Hurley and his dance partner Charlotte emerged as the winners. From appearances, it is fair to say that Monaco was as happy about losing this match as O'Hurley was about losing the regular competition.

The win on Dancing With the Stars boosted her visibility level considerably and resulted in a number of appearances on talk shows as well as possible new job offers, but she stated that she intends to remain with General Hospital.

TV work
Baywatch (1997-1998)
Late Last Night (1999)
Port Charles (1999-2003)
The Man Show (2000)
Hard Copy (2000)
Spin City (2001)
General Hospital (2003-present)
Dancing with the Stars (2005)
Punk'd (2005)

Filmography
BASEketball (1998)
Idle Hands (1999)
Mumford (1999)

Kelly Monaco Picture Gallery

This article (or parts thereof) is copied from an article on Wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. Although the vast majority of the wikipedia encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.