The Spokesman-Review.com (Spokane)
Thursday, June 28, 2001

Fans shattered when Carmen elects not to show
Doug Clark - Staff writer

After long wait at party, pinups and centerfolds went unsigned, Doug Clark says.

Luck is no lady as far as Patrick Bennett's concerned.

Luck is a dot-com business collapse. Luck is a triple bogey on the 18th green. Luck is a mad-cow burger with moldy cheese.

Think you got it bad?

Here's how Bennett spent Tuesday evening:

First the 23-year-old Spokane man lost a wad of money playing the slot machines at the Northern Quest Casino.

Then he was stood up by Hollywood hottie Carmen Electra.

"I can't think of a quote you can use," Bennett tells me, alternately cursing his misfortune and cracking jokes about it.

If misery really does love company, Bennett was among pals. He was in a long line of mostly young males at the Airway Heights casino to check out Electra's assets.

Bennett and many other Electra fans waited from 9:30 p.m. Tuesday until nearly 2 a.m. Wednesday. They hoped to get their Playboy magazines, posters, pinup calendars or T-shirts signed by the curvaceous former "Baywatch" TV babe.

Electra, alas, stiffed them all.

"I'm starting to think the only Carmen that exists is in my hand here," says Joe Leibrecht, holding the Playboy back issues that contain photographs of the naked body Electra.

Northern Quest's autograph party featured the stars of "Wet Work," an action mob movie being filmed in Spokane.

But though actors Judge Reinhold, Patrick Muldoon and the movie's lesser lights made the signing session, it was the missing Electra this crowd craved.

"Judge Reinhold never made the cover of Playboy," explains Justin Garner, 18, of his interest in Dennis Rodman's ex-wife.

Don't blame the casino for the Electra no show.

This was a voluntary gig for the actors. And though it was supposed to be over by 11 p.m., most of the bigger names didn't wander in until well after that hour.

Muldoon, for example, didn't make the scene until after 1 a.m. Reinhold beat him, but only by a half-hour.

And where, oh where, was Electra?

As the evening wore on, rumors began to percolate. First she was coming at 10:30 p.m., then 11:05, then 12:30, then 1. ...

"She's very sweet," says a bearlike friend of Wet Work" co-producer Rich Salvatore. "Genuine."

Genuinely late, you mean.

When Electra's brush-off became official, explanations started making the rounds: She was A) still shooting scenes or B) partying like a hellcat at some nightclub.

She'd be better off taking acting lessons.

"We're getting the shaft here!" raved Bennett from the line as I wandered past him.

Ah, Electra, I had such plans for you.

There were so many things I wanted to say, so many questions I wanted to ask.

Like, "DENNIS RODMAN? Girl, how deep in the celebrity toilet bowl are you willing to dive?"

Or, "Based on your Playboy pictorials that Leibrecht was only too happy to show me, who did your plastic surgery?"

With no Electra to grill, I found the next best thing.

The chef in the casino buffet pointed out Heather DuPree. She played the vine-swinging Jungle Jane in those corny Erotique Boutique commercials that used to run all the time on Spokane TV.

Now we're talking fame.

DuPree, who has a bit part in "Wet Work," says the Jungle Jane thing follows her around practically everywhere she goes in the area.

"I go into a grocery store and see the box boy eyeing me," says DuPree. "I'm thinking, 'Oh, God, he knows. He knows.'"

In fact, DuPree says the only swinging she does these days is as a serious vocalist who often tours Europe.

Carmen Electra? Hah, who needs ya.

"I'll show you how out of touch I am," a woman named Lisa tells me a little before 2 a.m. "I thought Carmen Electra was the name of a band."

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