PARKER STEVENSON - I've Been VERY LUCKY

The Hardy Boys and Baywatch a/um opens up about his early years and life today

- William Keck  

Parker Stevenson remembers waiting on line to see the treasures of King Tut and realizing everyone’s eyes were on him instead of the exhibit. “Through the glass, I see people on the other side looking at me,” Parker, who was then starring on The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, recalls to Closer. “I’m like, ‘No, you should be looking at him!’”

Parker, 71, continued to make fans swoon as lifeguard Craig Pomeroy on Baywatch, but he’s best known today as a photographer — although he still loves the sand and surf. “I’m at the beach every day in my real life, jogging, swimming,” he says. “For 20 years, I went surfing four or five times a week. Now it’s maybe once every two weeks.”

How did you get started as an actor?

Before I decided acting was what I wanted to do, I was in architecture school and then business school in New York. [Acting] was a way to get out of the house and make some money during the summers. My mother was an actress, which gave me a way into offices.

Would we have seen your mom in anything?

She did a lot of TV commercials for about 20 years. She had one for Kodak in the ’60s that aged her to all different times in her life. Younger, her age then, and all the way up. As a boy, to see her as all those different ages was really something.

Could the commercial have influenced your passion for photography?