Kitana Baker (b. 1977)
Birthplace:
Anaheim, California, USA
Born:
July 15, 1977
Miss Baker was born on July 15, 1977, in Anaheim, California, and raised in Riverside, California, the younger of two children. Her older brother has been her biggest influence in life, teaching her snowboarding and soccer at a young age, sports she continues to enjoy to this day. She also liked more girly pursuits as well, such as ballet and tap dancing. A good student, she graduated from high school a year early as an A student, then pursued an Associates in Science from a local junior college. Wanting to get into show business, and with a love for performing in front of an audience, Kitana began working as a showgirl in local clubs, eventually winning Local Showgirl of the Year 1998 and National Showgirl of the Year 1999 awards along the way. She also began modeling, posing for various magazines and web sites, and caught the attention of Playboy magazine in February 2001. Playboy hired Miss Baker to work on a TV show for their network called 'Strip Search' and featured her in 'Playboy's College Girls', 'Playboy's Wet & Wild' and 'Playboy's Book of Lingerie' special edition books, as well as their 'Playboy's College Girls' calendar, where she was Miss December. The producers of the show 'Night Calls 411' took an interest in her, and given that she already worked for Playboy - the channel that airs the 'Night Calls' show - signed her on immediately, and she's been on every episode since. She also continued working on other projects for Playboy, including videos and regularly appearing on other shows on the network. In the summer of 2002, it was announced that Brooke Burke would be giving up her hostessing duties on the E! show 'Wild On'. Feeling that she would be a perfect fit for the travelogue/bikini-oriented show, Miss Baker tried out for the job and ended up as one of the twelve finalists in the 'Wild On! Wild Off' contest. Though the hostessing role ultimately went to Cindy Taylor, E! was impressed enough with Miss Baker to feature her in segment of the show taped in San Diego, for the episode titled 'Wild on Wants You: The West Coast,' and returned again to take part in 'Wild On! H20.' Wanting to make her way into a more mainstream acting career, Kitana began taking acting lessons at the South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California, and has landed several roles in both independent feature films and a few major ones. She can be seen in the opening trailer for Auto Focus (2002) a film starring Willem Dafoe and Greg Kinnear, and has a small role in the Universal film _Intolerable (2003)_. Also, Miss Baker has been seen in television shows such as 'Fast Lane', 'Big Shot', 'The Test' and 'The Man Show', where she appeared in two skits ('Bosom Springs' and 'Women in Sports'). She can still be seen live each month on 'Night Calls 411' every second and fourth Wednesday. Other projects she's been involved with include performing in music videos by artists such as Tommy Lee, Sugar Ray, Offspring, Moby, Brian McKnight, Shaggy, Mack 10 and DragPipe. Kitana also plans to continue modeling for the time being.