As a Wilhemina model 20 years ago, New York and Paris-based Wendie Malick led a wild and woolly life traveling the world for five years. It came to an abrupt end after a horrifying experience in Senegal changed her life forever.

"Suddenly, people from nearby villages came from everywhere with knives and axes, attacked the beast and cut it up for food while it was still alive," Malick continues painfully. "I don't know how long it took for the whale to die. It was a matter of survival for the local people, but it was the most violent scene I have ever witnessed.

Malick, who now co-stars in the sitcom "Just Shoot Me" as bitchy fashion editor Nina Van Horn, met her husband-to-be 10 years later in the vegetarian food line set up for volunteers from a Los Angeles church working over the Thanksgiving holiday to build homes for the poor in Tijuana, Mexico. She took one look at the lanky, 6-foot-3, bleached-blond Richard Erickson and fell in love.