Cynthia Dawn "Cindy" Margolis (born October 1, 1965 in Los Angeles, California) is an American Model and actress. She auditioned to become the newest Barker's Beauty on The Price is Right during its 22nd season and later returned as the temporary fill-in during its 24th season.
Early Life & Career, Modeling & Acting[]
Born and raised in Los Angeles, California to Jewish parents Karyn and William C. Margolis.
With an outgoing personality to match her all-American girl-next-door looks, Cindy already had her sights set on making a name for herself from an early age. A natural self-promoter, Cindy's entrepreneurial instincts kicked in while attending California State University, Northridge where she designed her own line of specialty greeting cards for a business class assignment. Naturally, she posed as the model for the cards, which conveniently included her phone number. Soon orders for the cards were coming in, as were legitimate modeling offers from agents who had been shown her innovate class projects.
Beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, Cindy's modeling career took off. She has modeled in advertising for companies such as Reebok, Vidal Sassoon, Coors, Frederick's of Hollywood, Hanes, and Sunkist. She was Miss Makita Power Tools 1986 and did appearances at woodworking trade shows.
Aside from posing for cameras, Cindy also flourished into a blossoming acting career. She landed guest starring roles on shows such as Married With Children, Murphy Brown, and on both Baywatch and it's spin-off series Baywatch Nights.
Price is Right Audition & Later Return[]
Coming into the 1990s, Cindy continued to embark in modeling and acting gigs and soon she was ready to take on a new challenge. In November 1993, she auditioned to become the newest Barker's Beauty on the television game show The Price is Right during its 22nd season on the air and model tryouts as the producers conducted a nationwide search to permanently replace 18-year veteran Dian Parkinson, who departed from the series back in June of 1993. Cindy successfully aced her audition as the blonde bombshell made her tryout debut on (airdate) November 24th (behind tryout model Theresa Ring's stint) and continued on until December 2nd (Cynthia Brimhall made her tryout debut the next day).
The following season, Season 24 (beginning on September 11, 1995), Cindy was one of few tryout models invited back to fill the vacant spot left by Gena Lee Nolin, (her tryout debut airdate: May 3, 1994), who was previously selected as permanent Barker's Beauty and parted ways with the series after contract role on Baywatch after only one full season on the show as Cindy stepped in during the first week after Gena's departure, continuing on until the 3rd of October.
Annette Marroquin, whom also auditioned back in Season 22, was also invited back to the show for several weeks as she filled in the fourth spot, taking over for Cindy, beginning on October 4th until the end of the month, with Cindy returning again in early November as it was then decided by the show's producers to downsize the number of models from four to three following Holly Hallstrom's abrupt dismissal on October 27th, 1995.
Newcomer Michele Smith also auditioned to become the new Barker's Beauty spot and remained with the show for a few weeks. Followed by Chantel Dubay, Mindy Kennedy Alvarez and longtime substitute model Kyle Aletter appearing for a period of weeks. Out of all the girls, Cindy, Mindy and Chantel appeared more frequently as the producers rotated between the three and ultimately deciding to go with Chantel as Gena and Holly’s permanent replacement as announced in April 1996 (Chantel left the show in September 1999 and was replaced by Nikki Ziering).
Later Career[]
Although she was never a regular Barker's Beauty on The Price is Right, Cindy's popularity skyrocketed to even greater heights. She was frequently featured in segments for the entertainment news programs Entertainment Tonight and Extra and was soon named as the "Queen of the Internet" by Yahoo! Internet Life Magazine. She also found her way into the 2000 Guinness Book of World Records as a result of being the "most downloaded" person in 1999. At the peak of her popularity, images of Cindy were downloaded 70,000 times in a span of 24 hours.
Cindy also continued acting, landing small roles in TV and movies. In 1997, she appeared in the film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery as one of the fembots. Followed by an appearance in the 1998 comedy Chairman of the Board. Cindy was also a frequent guest on Howard Stern's radio show, earning the radio shock jock his highest ratings ever.
No longer just a stunning blonde bombshell, she had become a bankable brand name, which she leveraged as the host of the short-lived dance party program titled The Cindy Margolis Show which was broadcasted from Miami, Florida and aired on the UPN network in 2000.
Also in 2000, Cindy shared a reunion with Bob Barker on the syndicated talk show Donny and Marie (hosted by Donny & Marie Osmond). In the segment, Bob talks about both his professional and personal life and later in the show, he gives Donny and Marie a chance to play the Clock Game as Cindy appeared and modeled the "prizes" the Osmond siblings had a chance to "win" (Cindy was also a scheduled guest on the same show and appeared later).
When she turned 40 years of age, Cindy took her modeling career up to the next level as she took on a brave new challenge: She took it all off for the cameras of Playboy as she posed in the December 2006 issue of the magazine. After her nude pictorials in the magazine, Cindy revealed that she wanted to be an inspiration to mothers and women her age and that being the reason she wanted to bare it all for Playboy and also saying that it would be fun going up against 20-something centerfolds.
She made her second appearance in Playboy as she posed nude once more in the July 2008 issue of the magazine with the cover proclaiming Cindy Margolis is Sexy and Single! (following her separation and eventual divorce from her husband Guy Starkman).
In an interview with EXTRA! magazine, Cindy stated that Desperate Housewives had been an inspiration for her as it showed that mothers her age can also be fit and sexy. A portion of the proceeds from the issues sold will go to a charity for which Cindy is a spokeswoman, "RESOLVE". This charity aims to get fertility treatment better covered by insurance companies.
Personal Life[]
In September 1998, Cindy married restaurateur Guy Starkman after dating for a period of months, they reportedly had an open marriage.
5 years in the marriage, in 2002, Cindy and her husband were ready to start a family. They originally wanted to start a family when they first married but it wasn't an easy road. It was extremely difficulty for Cindy to become pregnant in the first few months following their wedding. Using in-vitro fertility treatments, she and her husband, Guy Starkman eventually were able to conceive their first child, a son, Nicholas.
Three years later, their family expanded even further, welcoming twin daughters, Sabrina and Sierra, thanks to the incubation assistance of a surrogate mother.
But sadly and unfortunately, aside from all the success she's had in acting, modeling and her charity work, Cindy's home life began to crumble. In 2008, she and husband Guy Starkman separated and the following year, they divorced.
In 2010, a year after she was officially divorced from her husband, Cindy was on the hunt to find a new love as the now-defunct FOX Reality Channel produced an original series titled Seducing Cindy, a dating reality show where potential male competitors between the ages of 18 and 49 competed to win Cindy's affections. The reality show unfortunately only lasted just the one season as the Fox Reality channel was discontinued by all major Cable TV companies.
Today, Cindy continues to remain active in her charity causes and makes occasional TV and sometime Movie appearances. In 2012, she was seen on the ABC Family Show Beverly Hills Nannies, where she employs a nanny for her three children. She was most recently seen in the 2015 Syfy film Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!
Gallery[]
(Cindy as a tryout model on The Price is Right, 1993-1996)