Lorenzo Lamas was born in Santa Monica and grew up in Southern California. At thirteen, he moved with his mother, stage and screen actress Arlene Dahl, to New York City. There he attended the Admiral Farragut Academy, a military school where he developed character and discipline that would benefit him for the rest of his life. During his four years at Farragut, he became interested in athletics and lettered in wrestling and track. He was president of his senior class and 2nd in charge of aBatallion of 300 cadets. He graduated with the intention of enrolling in the University of California to study veterinary medicine. However, during the summer of that year, he visited his father Fernando Lamas on the film set of The Cheap Detective. It was at this point he decided to pursue a career in acting and to follow his father’s advice to enroll in Tony Barr’s actors’ studio.
Lorenzo’s first big break came at nineteen, when he won the role of Tom Chisum in the blockbuster film Grease. From there, he was cast in several television roles until he got another lucky break, being cast in the nighttime soap Falcon Crest. He had been studying the martial art Tae Kwon Do, and the producers quickly realized how important it was to incorporate this skill into his character’s action scenes. After nine years on Falcon Crest, his action hero credentials were established and he made a number of action movies including Snake Eater, Body Rock and CIA Target Alexa, which he also directed.
At this point, Lorenzo was a black belt and met with Stephen Cannell to develop an action television series, Renegade. For the next five years, he filmed 110 episodes of the show, producing and occasionally directing as well as acting the series. Air America followed, whetting his appetite for aviation. Thanks to the many hours this series required him to spend behind the controls of an airplane, he became a certified private pilot in 1997 and later received his commercial helicopter rating as well.
Actively pursuing his career as an actor, director and producer, he is always staying busy. He also co-chairs several children’s charities, including Make a Wish, MDA and his annual Ride to the Dunes for Child Abuse Awareness.
Lorenzo is married and has six children, three of whom still live at home. They are his number one priority.
LORENZO LAMAS TO APPEAR ON 2015's CELEBRITY APPRENTICE
TV journalist Geraldo Rivera, and “The Bold and the Beautiful” actor Lorenzo Lamas will be among the contestants appearing in the upcoming “Celebrity Apprentice.”
NBC announced Tuesday the lineup of 16 personalities that will compete for their favorite charities as the reality show returns for a new season in the boardroom with Donald Trump on Jan. 4.
Baseball star Johnny Damon, mother of eight Kate Gosseling along with “Deadliest Catch” star Sig Hansen, NFL great Terrell Owens, and musician Kevin Jonas are also slated to appear.
Actresses Keshia Knight Pulliam and Vivica A. Fox, comedian Gilbert Gottfried, Olympic athletes Shawn Johnson and Jamie Anderson, actor Ian Ziering, and TV personalities Leeza Gibbons, Brandi Glanville and Kenya Moore round out the rivals for the new season.
ABOUT LORENZO'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY RENEGADE AT HEART
Lorenzo Lamas has played many roles over the course of his roller coaster career. Star of several major television shows and action films, five-time husband, and reality show star, including competing in the next season of “The Celebrity Apprentice” scheduled to air in early 2015, Lamas has been tabloid fodder for decades. Fans can easily believe they have seen every side of Lamas. But the truth is far more interesting and surprising.
Son of film stars Fernando Lamas and Arlene Dahl, and stepson of swimmer and actress Esther Williams, Lorenzo was born into Hollywood royalty. But his path was not easy. Overweight and aimless as a child, he found it hard to live up to his famous father’s expectations, whose exploits made him the inspiration for the "most interesting man in the world", and have a mother who was aloof and detached.
However, Lorenzo surprised everyone, shaping up and ultimately winning countless black belts in Tae Kwon Do. Despite his father's early discouragement, he pursued acting, starring in “Falcon Crest” and “Renegade”. In Lorenzo’s upcoming autobiography Renegade at Heart (BenBella Books, December 9, 2014), the Emmy and Golden Globe nominated actor pulls back the curtain to share his startling and explosive story, the money and notoriety, the fights and falling outs, his years of battling abandonment and attachment issues after his parents' divorce, and his epic romances and tabloid-making marriages to his four ex-wives. He delves deep into his relationships with his six children and with his famous father, whose penetrating words of wisdom have guided him through turbulent times and to a sense of renewal and new beginnings.
Featuring 50 rare, never-before-shared family and personal photographs from his private collection, Renegade at Heart is everything Lamas' millions of fans have been waiting for—the unvarnished truth and his side of his remarkable journey and fully fleshed rumination of the highs and lows of an extraordinary life and survival of an extraordinary man and actor.