“Baywatch” actor and real-life lifeguard was 67

Michael “Newmie” Newman, the real-life lifeguard who appeared for ten seasons Baywatch One of the action series' most popular characters, he has died after his long battle with Parkinson's disease. He was 67.

Newman died Sunday at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Matthew Felker, the writer, director and producer of the new Hulu docuseries After Baywatch: Moment in the Suntold The Hollywood Reporter. He was diagnosed in 2006.

“This terminal illness has given me a lot of time to think, which I may not have wanted, but it has brought me wisdom,” Newman said People magazine two months ago.

Newman, a former Iron Man competitor and firefighter, was 6 feet 3 inches tall and 250 pounds in his prime. He was the only one Baywatch Actor who actually worked as a lifeguard in Los Angeles County after starting as a junior lifeguard in the shadows of the Santa Monica Pier when he was ten.

As Newmie, he appeared in 109 episodes over the show's first ten seasons from 1989 to 2000 – the first on NBC, the next nine in syndication – and only David Hasselhoff and Jeremy Jackson appeared in more episodes. Baywatch would become a global phenomenon, broadcast in more than 140 countries around the world.

He then returned to work full-time as a firefighter for Los Angeles County.

Newman was born on April 26, 1957 in San Francisco and grew up in Brentwood, Los Angeles. His parents were British; His father, also Michael, was a member of the British national water polo team and his mother Joan was a swimming instructor.

He graduated from Palisades Charter High School, played on the swim teams at Santa Monica City College and UC Santa Barbara and previously worked as a lifeguard for more than two decades Baywatch waved. (His brother Mark was also a lifeguard in LA County.)

“Because I looked like that, my fellow guard Greg Bonnan (co-creator of Baywatch) asked me to appear in a teaser tape to sell the concept,” Newman recalls in the 2007 book Hometown Santa Monica. “He couldn't pay me, but he promised there would be a job for me if he could. It was a day in the life of a lifeguard: saving the kids, breaking up the fight, meeting the girl, walking off into the sunset – you know, just like in real life.”

Newman appeared in the 1989 pilot television film Baywatch: Panic at Malibu Pier and in the first episode of Baywatch and usually appeared uncredited in other early installments. Along the way, he did stunts in the water that no one else could handle and gave the writers tips on rescue scenes; All of this finally led him to a dialogue.

“I was too useful for them to get rid of,” he said People in another interview. “Basically, I started out as a stuntman, and after being out of the opening credits for seven years, I was finally appointed and allowed to be at the forefront of the show.”

He and Hasselhoff left the series after Season 10, which was set in Hawaii; The show only lasted one more season.

Newman also appeared in three episodes of the syndicated spin-off Baywatch Nights in 1996 and the direct-to-video film in 1998 Baywatch: White Thunder in Glacier Bay.

In addition to Mark and another brother, Grant, survivors include his wife of 37 years, Sarah; her son Chris (another LA lifeguard) and daughter Emily; and her granddaughter Charlie.

Donations in his memory may be made to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.

Newman, who tried to stave off Parkinson's through a rigorous exercise program, was diagnosed when he was 50 and “all the things you thought you would do with your children and grandchildren, pictures we wanted to take, all of them the plans. “I had…stopped,” he said People.

Chris Gardner contributed to this report.