TV Guide Online (September 28, 1999)
Charisma Carpenter: Death in Vegas
By John Aboud, TV Guide Online
September 28, 1999
Charisma Carpenter says she’s only recently been inside a casino, but after what happened to her last time she may never want to go in again!
The Las Vegas native tells Britain’s FHM magazine that the last time she visited home she stopped by a casino only to watch a man die right next to her. “There was this guy at a gaming table one minute, the next he was on the floor,” she explains. Perhaps caught up in the British sense of understatement, she adds, “That kind of put a damper on my vacation.”
With her leading role on the new WB show Angel (premiering October 5, 9 pm/ET), Carpenter has come a long way since her first break, a guest shot on Baywatch. “That was my worst job,” she remembers. “They did a full-on butt-shot when they’d said it was going to be a silhouette. I wasn’t naked – I had a bikini on – but I wasn’t down with it, and it was my first disillusionment. I’ve had plenty since – now I’m fully jaded!”
Even in her innocent, struggling-actress days, Carpenter was at least pragmatic. Her ability to compromise proved vital on the set of a commercial. “I had to do a commercial where the food had been glazed to make it look better, but the stuff they’d used was poisonous. We’d put it in our mouths then spit it out, but there was one girl from Texas who kept saying she wouldn’t do it because she wasn’t raised like that. So they fired her.”
