David Michael Hasselhoff (born July 17, 1952) is an American actor and singer. He is best known for his lead roles as Michael Knight in the popular 1980s U.S. series Knight Rider and as L.A. County Lifeguard Mitch Buchannon in the series Baywatch. Hasselhoff also produced Baywatch for a number of seasons in the 1990s up until 2001, when the series ended with Baywatch Hawaii. Hasselhoff also crossed over to a music career during the end of the 1980s and the early 1990s. He was noted for his performance when the Berlin Wall was brought down in 1989. He enjoyed a short lived success as a singer primarily in German-speaking Europe, particularly in Germany and Austria. More recently, Hasselhoff has been involved with talent shows such as NBC's America's Got Talent in 2006. Hasselhoff's autobiography, Making Waves, was released in the United Kingdom in September 2006.

Hasselhoff portrayed Dr. William "Snapper" Foster, Jr. on the soap opera The Young and the Restless from 1975 to 1982. In 1979 he played the role of Simon in Starcrash. He later went on to star as Michael Knight in the Glen A. Larson-created series Knight Rider from 1982 to 1986 (a role he would reprise in Knight Rider 2000 (1991) and cameo in 2008's Knight Rider TV film).

Hasselhoff describes Knight Rider as more than a TV show: "It's a phenomenon. It's bigger than Baywatch ever was." On the success of Knight Rider — "It's because it was about saving lives, not taking lives, and it was how one man really can make a difference. And we had a blast making it, and we made sure nobody died on the show; we made sure nobody ever drowned on Baywatch." (However, in the 1982 two hour pilot "Knight Of The Phoenix", Michael Long's partner Mugsy is shot and dies in the parking lot.) He describes the acting he has done as "a little more difficult than if you had a regularly well-written script – like, if I was going to be in, say, Reservoir Dogs, or The Godfather, or Dances with Wolves or Lawrence of Arabia or ER, I had to talk to a car."