Bach played kissin' cousin Daisy Duke in the popular TV series The Dukes of Hazzard. The show ran from 1979-85 and Bach, dressed as Daisy in short-shorts and extra-tight shirts, became a star and a popular poster girl. From 1993-1995 she appeared as a wildlife rancher in the series African Skies.
Daisy Duke was played by Jessica Simpson in the 2005 feature film version of The Dukes of Hazzard. Bach, who was 51 when the film came out, was not considered for the role.
Career Highlights: Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, White Water Rebels, The Dukes of Hazzard
First Major Screen Credit: Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)
Biography
American actress Catherine Bach was born in Ohio, but spent most of her high school years in South Dakota with her father. As soon as she finished high school, Catherine flew to California to pursue the acting career she'd been dreaming about since seeing her actor uncle, Tony Verdugo, in a stage production. Supporting herself with various day jobs, Catherine took dancing lessons, made the audition rounds, and eventually attained a few TV bits and movie roles. Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1973) was her most widely seen film role, principally because of what she didn't wear in it; but her best role was an all-too-brief appearance in The Midnight Man (1974), as Natalie Clayborne, the troubled college coed at the center of a mystery involving blackmail and murder.
In 1978 Bach was cast along with John Schneider and Tom Wopat as the "Dukes of Hazzard" in the weekly CBS TV series of the same name. The series was a comedy adventure about a hillbilly family, their souped-up automobile (The General Lee), and their corrupt antagonist, Boss Hogg. As Daisy Duke, Catherine spent most of her time in T-shirts and cutoffs, and thus the actress became a favorite of the young-college-boy set. Within a few months of Dukes of Hazzard's debut, the Catherine Bach poster was outselling the Farrah Fawcett and Suzanne Somers posters in quite a few cities. Catherine stayed with Dukes until its cancellation in 1985, even weathering the "siege of 1981," when her costars Schneider and Wopat left over contract differences and were briefly replaced by two lookalike actors. Like many 1970s TV stars, Catherine Bach found the movie offers, poster contracts, personal appearances and talk-show gigs slowly evaporating as her series faded from the public's memory. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Bach's first screen appearance was in the Burt Lancaster murder mystery, The Midnight Man, shot in Upstate South Carolina in 1973, in which she played the murdered coed, Natalie Claiburn. It was released in June 1974.
Catherine became a TV icon when, unhappy with the wardrobe provided for her Daisy Duke character, she fashioned short shorts from a pair of jeans. Thanks to the actress and her character, the term "Daisy Dukes" is now synonymous in popular vernacular with cut off denim jean shorts.
She married David Shaw in 1976, but the couple divorced in 1981. Catherine married Peter Lopez in August 1990. They have two children, Sophia and Laura.
