Michele Merkin (born June 25, 1975) is an American former

model A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the Plan_(drawing), plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a mea ...

and

television host A television presenter (or television host, some become a "television personality") is a person who introduces, hosts television programs, often serving as a mediator for the program and the audience. Nowadays, it is common for people who garner ...

Early life and beginnings

Merkin was born in

Santa Clara County, California Santa Clara County, officially the County of Santa Clara, is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California, with a population of 1,936,259, as of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring Sa ...

, of Swedish and Russian Jewish descent as the youngest child of four children. She attended

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...

in England. Her mother was from Sweden and had been a model for twenty years, including an appearance in the debut

Victoria's Secret Victoria's Secret is an American lingerie, clothing, and beauty retailer known for high visibility marketing and branding, starting with a popular catalog and followed by an annual fashion show with supermodels dubbed Angels. As the largest ret ...

catalog in 1977. Merkin was a tall child, reaching by the age of 14. This helped her play

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

, but gathered her some abuse in school, where she was called nicknames such as "

Giraffa The giraffe is a large African hoofed mammal belonging to the genus ''Giraffa''. It is the tallest living terrestrial animal and the largest ruminant on Earth. Traditionally, giraffes were thought to be one species, ''Giraffa camelopardalis ...

" and "

Manute Bol Manute Bol (; October 16, 1962 – June 19, 2010) was a Sudanese-American professional basketball player and political activist. Listed at or tall, Bol was tied with Gheorghe Mureșan as the tallest player in the history of the National Bask ...

". Merkin began modeling part-time from the age of 15, while she was in high school.

Career

Modeling

Merkin modeled for 15 years, living in Paris, Milan, New York and Los Angeles, appearing in such magazines as ''

ELLE ''Elle'' (stylized ''ELLE'') is a worldwide women's magazine of French origin that offers a mix of fashion and beauty content, together with culture, society and lifestyle. The title means "she" or "her" in French. ''Elle'' is considered the w ...

'', ''

Marie Claire ''Marie Claire'' is a French international monthly magazine first published in France in 1937, followed by the United Kingdom in 1941. Since then various editions are published in many countries and languages. The feature editions focus on wo ...

'', ''

Harper's Bazaar ''Harper's Bazaar'' is an American monthly women's fashion magazine. It was first published in New York City on November 2, 1867, as the weekly ''Harper's Bazar''. ''Harper's Bazaar'' is published by Hearst and considers itself to be the st ...

'' and ''

Vogue Vogue may refer to: Business * ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine ** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine ** ''Vogue China'', ...

'', and in more than 60 commercials, most notably campaigns for

Clairol Clairol is the American personal care-product division of company Wella, specializing in hair coloring and hair care. Clairol was founded in 1931 by Americans Joan Gelb and her husband Lawrence M. Gelb, with business partner and lifelong friend ...

and the

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...

video game ''

Perfect Dark ''Perfect Dark'' is a first-person shooter developed and published by Rare for the Nintendo 64 video game console in 2000. The first game of the ''Perfect Dark'' series, it follows Joanna Dark, an agent of the Carrington Institute research c ...

''.

For ''Perfect Dark'', Merkin appeared as the lead video game character

Joanna Dark Joanna Dark is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the ''Perfect Dark'' video game series. She debuted in the Nintendo 64 first-person shooter ''Perfect Dark'' and is a player character in all the games of the series. Outside of vid ...

in commercials and in-store promotions for the N64 cartridge; Merkin's hair was cut short and dyed black for the appearances. Merkin was selected for ''

Maxim Maxim or Maksim may refer to: Entertainment * ''Maxim'' (magazine), an international men's magazine ** ''Maxim'' (Australia), the Australian edition ** ''Maxim'' (India), the Indian edition *Maxim Radio, ''Maxim'' magazine's radio channel on Sir ...

'' magazine’s "Hot 100" list of attractive women in 2006 (at #74) and 2007 (at #56).

Television

Beginning in June 2005, Merkin co-hosted the cable television program ''Foody Call'' with

Rossi Morreale Rossi Morreale (born April 27, 1977) is a television personality and former college football player. Career Morreale was a starting wide receiver/ punt returner for the University of Arkansas Razorbacks football team, lettering from 1997&nda ...

, a

reality television Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19 ...

show which combined cooking and romance by teaching men to seduce women with food. It was the second highest rated show on the Style Network. After the program was canceled the following year, she admitted that the premise was faulty, saying, "... most girls I know don’t really eat. The way to a woman’s heart is definitely not through her stomach." Concurrently, Merkin was a sideline reporter on the third season of ''

Extreme Dodgeball ''Extreme Dodgeball'' is an American game show based on the game of dodgeball that aired between 2004 and 2005 on the Game Show Network. The series ran for three seasons, each of which featured six to eight teams of five to seven players. The f ...

'' which aired starting July 2005 on the

Game Show Network Game Show Network (GSN) is an American basic cable channel owned by Sony Pictures Television. The channel's programming is primarily dedicated to game shows, including reruns of acquired game shows, along with new, first-run original and revive ...

."Extreme Dodgeball coming soon!"
, Michele Merkin Newsletter, official site, June 12, 2005. Retrieved November 8, 2007. In May 2007, she hosted the television series ''

The Next Best Thing ''The Next Best Thing'' is a 2000 American comedy-drama film directed by John Schlesinger (his final feature film before his death in 2003) about two best friends who have a child together and a custody battle years after. Starring Madonna, Ruper ...

'', which aired on

American Broadcasting Company The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network. It is the flagship property of the ABC Entertainment Group division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, Cali ...

. In March 2008, she hosted ''Sand Blasters III: The Extreme Sand Sculpting Championship'' on the

Travel Channel Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which had previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in New York, New York, United S ...

. From 2008 to 2009 she co-hosted '' Party Monsters Cabo'' on E!, a reality television show in which participants compete to determine who is the best party event planner. Merkin has also hosted individual episodes of ''

E! News Daily ''E! News'', previously known as ''E! News Daily'' and ''E! News Live'', is the entertainment news operation for the cable network E! in the United States. Its former on-air weekday newscast debuted on September 1, 1991, and primarily reports ...

'', NBC's '' For Love or Money'', VH1's ''Red Eye'', ''The Movie Fan Show'', ''The Love Report'' for Studios USA, ''Close-up Hollywood'', ''Buy TV'', ''Movie Watch'' and ''

Attack of the Show! ''Attack of the Show!'' (''AOTS'') is an American live television program and that aired on G4. AOTS features segments on pop culture, video games, and movies. After an initial run from 2005 to 2013 (which originally aired from 2005 until 2013 ...

''.

Personal life

Merkin is married to

Ted Waitt Theodore William "Ted" Waitt (born January 18, 1963) is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. Waitt is a co-founder of Gateway, Inc.

, co-founder of

Gateway, Inc. Gateway, Inc., previously Gateway 2000, is an American computer hardware company. The company developed, manufactured, supported, and marketed a wide range of personal computers, computer monitors, servers, and computer accessories. It was acqui ...

They married in 2011.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Merkin, Michele Living people Glamour models American women television personalities Television personalities from California American people of Russian-Jewish descent American people of Swedish descent American people of Jewish descent People from Santa Clara County, California 1975 births