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Making Waves: The Autobiography
Making Waves follows Hasselhoff’s acting career from his early childhood role in Peter Pan to his highly acclaimed performance in Chicago in London’s West End, and his new TV triumph in Simon Cowell’s America’s Got Talent.
The wealth of inside information includes untold stories of his first marriage and his life as a TV star in Knight Rider and Baywatch. At times deeply personal, it also reveals his fight against drink that nearly drove him to destruction and the devastating motorbike accident in which his second wife Pamela was badly injured. The conclusion covers the reasons for the breakdown of their marriage.
Described as a ‘living legend’, this fascinating book gives a new and moving insight into what it means to be the most watched TV star in the world.
The wealth of inside information includes untold stories of his first marriage and his life as a TV star in Knight Rider and Baywatch. At times deeply personal, it also reveals his fight against drink that nearly drove him to destruction and the devastating motorbike accident in which his second wife Pamela was badly injured. The conclusion covers the reasons for the breakdown of their marriage.
Described as a ‘living legend’, this fascinating book gives a new and moving insight into what it means to be the most watched TV star in the world.
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
349 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 3, 1997
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July 31, 2013
First line reads “Growing up in Atlanta, I discovered the power of dreams from Martin Luther King.”
Oh Jesus Christ. No, surprisingly it wasn’t THAT SPEECH the young David heard and was inspired for forever, he goes one better than that.
“I met Dr King’s children when they came to see a performance of Peter Pan in which I had played Nibs, one of the Lost Boys.”
...and?
Exactly how Dr King inspired the young actor he does not say but he does attribute much of his Knight Rider mantra (many years later) to the murdered civil rights activist. He talks about growing up in the Deep South, when life was still heavily segregated. A theory the young David couldn’t understand despite the influence otherwise around him and their more traditional ideas.
“I truly didn’t understand.”
Living in this era gave David the opportunity to learn the essential principles and basic morals in life he has always held true to this day. Perhaps this would explain his common sense approach to drugs early on, when he talks about the social acceptance of acid he witnessed when he attended a drama college in California.
“It was mind boggling that people wanted to take stuff that would keep them awake for twenty-four hours and see monsters. I couldn’t see the point.”
Well, it all depends on your drug of choice, doesn’t it David? I bet that burger on the bathroom floor of that Vegas hotel had grown tentacles too.
David went to Cal-Arts after leaving Pontiac, Michigan’s Acadamy of Dramatic Arts when he was held up in a robbery at the gas station he was working at to make ends meet.
Early on in the book, there seems to be a lot of blame directed elsewhere concerning the initial root of all of David’s drinking evil. In fact, David faces upto the problem almost right away. He gets right to the crux of the problem, the centre of all of his strife. It’s there as early as Page 5.
“Girls would be outside my trailer door clamouring to get in and I would drink the minibar. My assistants got all the girls and I got all the minibars.”
Your assistants?
“When I was touring with my band or filming on location, the guys would stay out all night and come back with stories about the girls they’d met in the bars and clubs,”
He just did what he had to do to resist the temptations around him. He stayed in, barricaded himself in and got wasted for the cause. It wasn’t just the women though. Elsewhere,
“Even back then in the 1970’s, I had been drinking to kill anxiety and loneliness.”
Incidentally, the fifth step of the twelve is;
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
If that video was anything to go by though, I am sure we can be safe in the knowledge that David is on the road to recovery. But what Michael Knight really puts the continual dependency on alcohol down to is that of escapism. Escape from punishing filming schedule after punishing film schedule, that basically gets in the way of his drinking and whoring.
So much was Match Buchanan’s drinking in fact, during the time when he had to take cue cards onto the set, he appeared in a film as a walk on part and had no recollection of it until many years later when he saw himself on TV.
I can just see that fly-on-the-wall experience,
“Honey, was I in this?”
“Kinda...” she mumbles under her breath in the kitchen, as she swigs from the bottle of Tanqueray.
Another curious part of David’s life is his music career. A mixture of euro cheese and TV infamy has given him tremendous success in Germany, the pinnacle of which was in 1989, when during the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, David released a song called “Looking for Freedom”, a re-release of a popular German song with re-written lyrics in English. The Germans (especially those still in the East, not to mention the poorer, held back side of Berlin) latched onto the song and propelled it to #1 in the charts, where it stayed for eight weeks and became an intriguing and bizarre part of the social conscious of many in the country, frustrated at the divide. When the Berlin Wall was eventually torn down in November, David was invited to perform the song on the wall, a strange sight to many around the world, I am sure.
"I find it a bit sad that there is no photo of me hanging on the walls in the Berlin Museum at Checkpoint Charlie," he told German magazine, TV Spielfilm, sparking controversy in regards to his huge inflated ego and humourous debate in the media as to whether David and his cheesy song did have anything to do with the Germans finally getting their freedom.
The idea that a David Hasselhoff song had anything to do with the fall of communism is simply absurd and has followed him around of late and hasn’t lived it down. The interesting thing about of all of this is that he probably did have an impact. That’s the funny thing about politics and the time. Sometimes it takes something absurd and unique to come along at the right time and make a difference.
‘One man can make a difference’ as the Knight Rider mantra goes.
David’s life is one of stellar achievements in the world of TV. He had quite remarkable foresight and took a number of risks in what turned out to be jammy masterstrokes. When NBC cancelled the under-performing Baywatch after one season, David took a paycut for an Executive Producer credit and on the back of his Knight Rider infamy and commendable work ethic, went off and sold the show around the world and in a couple of years along with the addition of one Pamela Anderson, became the most watched show in the world.
The business talk in regards to the wide syndication and the accompanying obsession with ratings throughout the middle of the book is a little hard to swallow at times. He goes on about it a lot. Market share, profit margins, the millions and millions that the show made and the lack of credibility Baywatch received in the eyes of critics and the judges of awards that would always elude them.
He tends to over explain well known events too. He goes into an odd amount of detail about segregation and the impact of Martin Luther King at the start of the book and the death of Diana, when he covers his brief meeting with her. He explains exactly who these people are to us like they are strangers we had never heard of. It’s a bit odd.
Towards the end of the book, David attributes much of his success and consistent adoration from the general public down to God. This started just after a drink-drive accident with a summit hike to Mount Timpanogos in Utah to a waterfall, where he believes he spoke directly to The Big Man Upstairs and received his answer in the form of a lone hawk circling above him. He divulged more in a September 2006 interview, but whether he quotes God word for word, I’m not entirely sure.
“Amid all the adversity, whenever I had problems, God always said: 'Here's Chicago, here's a book, here's the No1 TV show, here's the No1 movie, here's a recording deal, here's two million downloads. I'm gonna make you the biggest star in the world, David, and I'm going to give you responsibility with that, and you can either take it or you can fuck it up.”
One can appreciate the man’s faith, especially if it is helping him through his problems but you can’t help but feel that this is another crutch to aim his problems at (and those are continual problems since the release of the book as it has been well documented in the media) or another excuse to hold up his denial.
There is certainly a sense of unfinished business with this one. It ends and has been released at the most intriguing part of The Hoff’s career which certainly needs more insight. It feels like it has been rushed for the sake of timing and to please some sort of marketing director. It needed another few years I think, to percolate before becoming anywhere near a classic tome.
Shame really, as he is a very appealing character and has had such a unique and interesting life experience.
Nothing to do with the end of communism though. Sorry mate.
Oh Jesus Christ. No, surprisingly it wasn’t THAT SPEECH the young David heard and was inspired for forever, he goes one better than that.
“I met Dr King’s children when they came to see a performance of Peter Pan in which I had played Nibs, one of the Lost Boys.”
...and?
Exactly how Dr King inspired the young actor he does not say but he does attribute much of his Knight Rider mantra (many years later) to the murdered civil rights activist. He talks about growing up in the Deep South, when life was still heavily segregated. A theory the young David couldn’t understand despite the influence otherwise around him and their more traditional ideas.
“I truly didn’t understand.”
Living in this era gave David the opportunity to learn the essential principles and basic morals in life he has always held true to this day. Perhaps this would explain his common sense approach to drugs early on, when he talks about the social acceptance of acid he witnessed when he attended a drama college in California.
“It was mind boggling that people wanted to take stuff that would keep them awake for twenty-four hours and see monsters. I couldn’t see the point.”
Well, it all depends on your drug of choice, doesn’t it David? I bet that burger on the bathroom floor of that Vegas hotel had grown tentacles too.
David went to Cal-Arts after leaving Pontiac, Michigan’s Acadamy of Dramatic Arts when he was held up in a robbery at the gas station he was working at to make ends meet.
Early on in the book, there seems to be a lot of blame directed elsewhere concerning the initial root of all of David’s drinking evil. In fact, David faces upto the problem almost right away. He gets right to the crux of the problem, the centre of all of his strife. It’s there as early as Page 5.
“Girls would be outside my trailer door clamouring to get in and I would drink the minibar. My assistants got all the girls and I got all the minibars.”
Your assistants?
“When I was touring with my band or filming on location, the guys would stay out all night and come back with stories about the girls they’d met in the bars and clubs,”
He just did what he had to do to resist the temptations around him. He stayed in, barricaded himself in and got wasted for the cause. It wasn’t just the women though. Elsewhere,
“Even back then in the 1970’s, I had been drinking to kill anxiety and loneliness.”
Incidentally, the fifth step of the twelve is;
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
If that video was anything to go by though, I am sure we can be safe in the knowledge that David is on the road to recovery. But what Michael Knight really puts the continual dependency on alcohol down to is that of escapism. Escape from punishing filming schedule after punishing film schedule, that basically gets in the way of his drinking and whoring.
So much was Match Buchanan’s drinking in fact, during the time when he had to take cue cards onto the set, he appeared in a film as a walk on part and had no recollection of it until many years later when he saw himself on TV.
I can just see that fly-on-the-wall experience,
“Honey, was I in this?”
“Kinda...” she mumbles under her breath in the kitchen, as she swigs from the bottle of Tanqueray.
Another curious part of David’s life is his music career. A mixture of euro cheese and TV infamy has given him tremendous success in Germany, the pinnacle of which was in 1989, when during the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, David released a song called “Looking for Freedom”, a re-release of a popular German song with re-written lyrics in English. The Germans (especially those still in the East, not to mention the poorer, held back side of Berlin) latched onto the song and propelled it to #1 in the charts, where it stayed for eight weeks and became an intriguing and bizarre part of the social conscious of many in the country, frustrated at the divide. When the Berlin Wall was eventually torn down in November, David was invited to perform the song on the wall, a strange sight to many around the world, I am sure.
"I find it a bit sad that there is no photo of me hanging on the walls in the Berlin Museum at Checkpoint Charlie," he told German magazine, TV Spielfilm, sparking controversy in regards to his huge inflated ego and humourous debate in the media as to whether David and his cheesy song did have anything to do with the Germans finally getting their freedom.
The idea that a David Hasselhoff song had anything to do with the fall of communism is simply absurd and has followed him around of late and hasn’t lived it down. The interesting thing about of all of this is that he probably did have an impact. That’s the funny thing about politics and the time. Sometimes it takes something absurd and unique to come along at the right time and make a difference.
‘One man can make a difference’ as the Knight Rider mantra goes.
David’s life is one of stellar achievements in the world of TV. He had quite remarkable foresight and took a number of risks in what turned out to be jammy masterstrokes. When NBC cancelled the under-performing Baywatch after one season, David took a paycut for an Executive Producer credit and on the back of his Knight Rider infamy and commendable work ethic, went off and sold the show around the world and in a couple of years along with the addition of one Pamela Anderson, became the most watched show in the world.
The business talk in regards to the wide syndication and the accompanying obsession with ratings throughout the middle of the book is a little hard to swallow at times. He goes on about it a lot. Market share, profit margins, the millions and millions that the show made and the lack of credibility Baywatch received in the eyes of critics and the judges of awards that would always elude them.
He tends to over explain well known events too. He goes into an odd amount of detail about segregation and the impact of Martin Luther King at the start of the book and the death of Diana, when he covers his brief meeting with her. He explains exactly who these people are to us like they are strangers we had never heard of. It’s a bit odd.
Towards the end of the book, David attributes much of his success and consistent adoration from the general public down to God. This started just after a drink-drive accident with a summit hike to Mount Timpanogos in Utah to a waterfall, where he believes he spoke directly to The Big Man Upstairs and received his answer in the form of a lone hawk circling above him. He divulged more in a September 2006 interview, but whether he quotes God word for word, I’m not entirely sure.
“Amid all the adversity, whenever I had problems, God always said: 'Here's Chicago, here's a book, here's the No1 TV show, here's the No1 movie, here's a recording deal, here's two million downloads. I'm gonna make you the biggest star in the world, David, and I'm going to give you responsibility with that, and you can either take it or you can fuck it up.”
One can appreciate the man’s faith, especially if it is helping him through his problems but you can’t help but feel that this is another crutch to aim his problems at (and those are continual problems since the release of the book as it has been well documented in the media) or another excuse to hold up his denial.
There is certainly a sense of unfinished business with this one. It ends and has been released at the most intriguing part of The Hoff’s career which certainly needs more insight. It feels like it has been rushed for the sake of timing and to please some sort of marketing director. It needed another few years I think, to percolate before becoming anywhere near a classic tome.
Shame really, as he is a very appealing character and has had such a unique and interesting life experience.
Nothing to do with the end of communism though. Sorry mate.
June 22, 2017
Simply one of my favourite books ever
December 7, 2022
It will be a amazing book
December 31, 2022
Yeah, I don't know about this one...
May 20, 2024
I want to read this book it will be a amazing read of a one of amazing unique and talented Legend.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 18, 2024
‘”This book is my opportunity to print something from my heart, to tell the truth about what happened to me on the long and winding road from Baltimore to Baywatch to Broadway and beyond. The truth is not to be found in tabloid stories but in my actions: I am a good father and have tried to be a good husband. I love people and the emotional rollercoaster that goes with human relationships. I love all the bewildering, crazy, and wonderful things that life has to offer. This book is about my successes and my failures, my strengths and my weaknesses. And, above all, it is about the hope contained in the Knight Rider slogan: “One man can make a difference.””
Making Waves follows Hasselhoff’s acting career from his early childhood role in Peter Pan to his highly acclaimed performance in Chicago in London’s West End, and his new TV triumph in Simon Cowell’s America’s Got Talent. The wealth of inside information includes untold stories of his first marriage and his life as a TV star in Knight Rider and Baywatch.
At times deeply personal, it also reveals his fight against drink that nearly drove him to destruction and the devastating motorbike accident in which his second wife Pamela was badly injured. The conclusion covers the reasons for the breakdown of their marriage.
Described as a living legend, this fascinating book gives a new and moving insight into what it means to be the most-watched TV star in the world.’
I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
As someone who grew up watching and loving David Hasselhoff, I was very excited to get my hands on this book, and I am happy to say I wasn’t disappointed.
I loved getting a behind-the-scenes look not only at David Hasselhoof’s life but also at some of the Television shows that I absolutely adore. I also loved that there were photographs included in the book that capture specific moments in time for viewers to appreciate.
I always find it interesting to read about the ‘normal’ parts of famous people and how they deal with problems that arise, so I really appreciated that there were a lot of these moments in this book and that they felt real and relatable.
David Hasselhoff has done a great job with this book. It covered both his life and career and the ups and downs of his life. I was already a fan of David Hasselhoff before I read this book and after reading it I am more impressed with him, his career, and his appreciation for what he has been able to.
Making Waves by David Hasselhoff is well worth the read.
Geramie Kate Barker
gemsbooknook.wordpress.com
Making Waves follows Hasselhoff’s acting career from his early childhood role in Peter Pan to his highly acclaimed performance in Chicago in London’s West End, and his new TV triumph in Simon Cowell’s America’s Got Talent. The wealth of inside information includes untold stories of his first marriage and his life as a TV star in Knight Rider and Baywatch.
At times deeply personal, it also reveals his fight against drink that nearly drove him to destruction and the devastating motorbike accident in which his second wife Pamela was badly injured. The conclusion covers the reasons for the breakdown of their marriage.
Described as a living legend, this fascinating book gives a new and moving insight into what it means to be the most-watched TV star in the world.’
I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
As someone who grew up watching and loving David Hasselhoff, I was very excited to get my hands on this book, and I am happy to say I wasn’t disappointed.
I loved getting a behind-the-scenes look not only at David Hasselhoof’s life but also at some of the Television shows that I absolutely adore. I also loved that there were photographs included in the book that capture specific moments in time for viewers to appreciate.
I always find it interesting to read about the ‘normal’ parts of famous people and how they deal with problems that arise, so I really appreciated that there were a lot of these moments in this book and that they felt real and relatable.
David Hasselhoff has done a great job with this book. It covered both his life and career and the ups and downs of his life. I was already a fan of David Hasselhoff before I read this book and after reading it I am more impressed with him, his career, and his appreciation for what he has been able to.
Making Waves by David Hasselhoff is well worth the read.
Geramie Kate Barker
gemsbooknook.wordpress.com
Currently reading
June 9, 2010Nun haben wir das Buch eben durch Zufall gekauft, um es persönlich vom Herrn Hasselhoff in Salzburg signieren zu lassen - dann wird es auch gelesen. Es gibt durchaus witzige Stellen und es ist besser, als ich im Vornherein annahm.
Read
July 31, 2011Great book. Very funny in parts but also very cheesy! Would have liked to have read more about him personally, it all seemed to be about Knight Rider or Baywatch and not actually himself.
August 12, 2011
fab book
June 4, 2012
Alot of what he says in this book needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.
June 29, 2018
Love this book & could'nt put it down.Will probably read again as i do my other books as it was such a good read & am a fan of his Knight Rider days & Baywatch.Recommended
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews