Alexandra Elizabeth Paul (born July 29, 1963) is an American actress. She is probably best known for her role as Lt. Stephanie Holden in the television series Baywatch from 1992–97. She has starred in over 60 movies and television programs.

Personal life

Paul was born in New York City, the daughter of Sarah, a social worker, and Mark Paul, an investment banker.[1] Paul is married to triathlon coach Ian Murray and has competed in triathlons

Her identical twin sister, Caroline Paul, became one of the first women to join the San Francisco Fire Department and has written a memoir entitled Fighting Fire: A Personal Story about her experiences. Her younger brother Jonathan Paul is a militant animal rights activist; he is currently serving a four year sentence in federal prison for the 1997 arson of a slaughterhouse in Redmond, Oregon.[2][3]

Acting career

Apart from Baywatch, Paul is known for movies such as Christine (1983), based on the book by Stephen King; the bicycle-racing film American Flyers (1985) with Kevin Costner and the film version of the classic television series Dragnet starring Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd. She has also hosted non-fiction TV shows, including WE's Winning Women and a southern California local environmentalism show, Earth Talk Today.

Paul co-wrote and co-produced two documentaries: Jampacked, a documentary on the world population crisis, and The Cost of Cool: Finding Happiness in a Materialistic World. Jampacked received a Bronze Apple Award and first place recognition at the EarthVision Environmental Film and Video Festival. The Cost of Cool won a CINE Golden Eagle Award.

Paul is one of only two leading Baywatch actresses without breast enlargements. Her character was a competitive swimmer and Olympic swim coach, mirroring her own real-life athletic interests.

She made a cameo appearance in Borat in a deleted scene parodying her Baywatch role.

Paul is co-starring in Tru Loved (2008) and is currently filming a feature film Family of Four, written and directed by John Suits, also to be released in 2008.

As athlete

Paul is a competitive endurance athlete. She competed at the 1997 Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii, a grueling 2.44 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and 26.2 mile marathon, which she completed in 13:18:52. In 2004, Alexandra competed in the Bonaire 10k race, a 6 mile swim off the island of Bonaire. In 2006, she raced in the Maui Channel Crossing, a 10 mile swim from the Hawaiian island of Lanai to Maui.

Political activism

Paul is a dedicated environmental and political activist. In 2005, she was named "Activist of the Year" by the ACLU of Southern California. She avidly recycles, and will not use any products tested on animals. She has traveled to Nicaragua with a medical aid group and to South Africa to register voters, and has been registering voters locally every Wednesday night for the past eighteen years. The United Nations honored her in 1997 for her environmental work.

She has often committed herself to civil disobedience to protest against some policy or action that she believes is wrong. She has been arrested over a dozen times at the Nevada Nuclear Test site in peaceful protests. On March 19, 2003 she was arrested for trespassing onto federal property during a protest against the Iraq war and spent 5 days in jail. In 2006, Paul donated $250 to the Ned Lamont campaign against Joe Lieberman, because Lieberman supports the war in Iraq.[4] She supported Representative Dennis Kucinich for President and had donated $2,300 to his campaign, the max allowable.

She was arrested again on March 14, 2005 while protesting the crushing of the environmentally friendly electric vehicles (EV1), in Burbank, California. This arrest was featured in the documentary film Who Killed The Electric Car. As part of the protest, she parked her car in the way of the truck carrying the EV1s to the junkyard. She personally drives an EV, the fourth one she has owned.

Paul is an active member of Plug In America, an advocacy group supporting the development and promotion of electric cars.