I'VE KISSED SO MANY WOMEN I DON'T CARE ANYMORE (6/7/03)

Just in case you've missed all the hype surrounding the sexuality (*sigh*) one of The Bill's latest recruits, here it is rammed down your throat again!

The Billl's bisexual biker babe is sure to get crime figures soaring

THE BILL'S new babe Rae Baker is the kind of girl who just can't help making an entrance.

The sexiest officer on Sun Hill stands 5ft 11ins tall, has long, dark hair and huge and hypnotic brown eyes.

But it's not just her model looks which turn heads. The fact that she's often found in black leather astride a roaring motorbike or snogging another girl tends to attract attention, too.

Biking is Rae's real-life passion and it has been used to maximum effect on the ITV police drama.

She made jaws drop when she arrived on screen as bisexual DC Juliet Becker on a gleaming Honda Shadow, taking off her helmet and shaking her hair free.

It was cheesy as hell - but she loved every minute of it.

Rae, 28, said: "My entrance was a total cliche but it worked. I was so chuffed that they gave me my bike. That was what really clinched the part for me. I'm passionate about bikes.

"The Bill originally gave me a sports bike but I did a test drive and didn't like the riding position compared to what I'm used to.

"So they got me the Honda Shadow which is much sexier anyway because it's big and all gleaming chrome.

"I have a Yamaha Virago just now. Blokes think it's a real girl's bike but I like custom- built bikes. I like easy riders, bikes you can cruise around on.

"Driving down a country lane with the wind in your hair... that's my idea of heaven."

The Bill is the latest break in Rae's varied showbiz career. She has starred in a film with Michael Caine and sung in the stage show A Saint She Ain't, a spoof on 1940s Hollywood musicals.

But playing Juliet Becker is the first time she's been able to combine her two-wheeled passion with work. Her love of bikes comes from her father who allowed her to get a moped at 16. She said: "My dad was always into bikes and when I turned 16 I begged and begged him to let me get a moped.

"It was a nasty little thing with a big box on the back for your helmet. It had no gears, just wrist control and went along about 30mph. But that's how I got into bikes and it's just progressed from there."

If Rae made a memorable entrance in The Bill, she had an equally arresting affect on producer Paul Marquess at her audition.

She wasn't quite herself when they met due to the effects of powerful painkillers she was taking for a tonsil infection - and proceeded to tell him what was wrong with his show.

Rae said: "I had been seen for a different part, was down to the last three and things were looking good for the final, final meeting.

"But it all went disastrously wrong. I'd had a tonsil bleed and had been rushed to hospital. I was under the covers in a ward with my agent on the phone saying, `If you don't go along today that's it.'

"So my mother came to hospital and drove me from Hampshire to London to this meeting. I was completely sky high on the drugs they had been giving me so I went in with an attitude that it doesn't matter.

"I felt I'd played the part I was up for in every TV job that I'd done so when the producer asked what I thought about the character I said, `I don't know how far you can go with it then sat and waffled on for an hour about all the things I thought were missing in The Bill.

"I told him they needed someone on a motorbike, which you never see, and someone from the Home Counties - a university fast-tracker, otherwise what would someone as plummy as me be doing wandering around Sun Hill?

"I also said there are so many bad cops on The Bill at the moment wouldn't it be good just to have somebody normal?

"I just waffled on and took a risk. I was honest whereas normally you just sit there and say all the right things.

"Anyway as I was leaving the building thinking `Oh God what have I done, my agent will kill me' she rang and said, `I don't know what you've just said but they're going to write a part for you.'

"I was just so thrilled because I had been listened to which is a rare thing for an actor."

The character of Juliet is pretty much as Rae wanted. Described as Sun Hill's very own Lara Croft, she's a motorbike- riding, university graduate who has been fast-tracked straight into a role in CID.

Determined and dedicated, she's the closest thing to a good cop Sun Hill has seen in recent months - so they decided to make her a voracious bisexual.

Rae joked: "I couldn't just be normal. I have to have this weird sexual appetite!

"I'm cool with it because it's part of who Juliet is but if I start to get loads of women hitting on me I'm going to be like, `Oh no!' I just think of it as a challenge.

"I had to kiss one of the female characters in a toilet the other day and suddenly every guy in the crew had piled in.

"But I've kissed so many women on the show now that I don't care. I'm having a ball.

"The Bill is everything I expected it to be. It's a really top job. I'm loving it." Rae, who hails from Hampshire, has been acting since she was 13. She is a veteran of the National Youth Music Theatre and the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.

She has toured in musicals and opera while guesting on shows including Jonathan Creek, Birds of a Feather and One Foot in the Grave but nothing which has caused people to stop her in the street.

Snogging girls on TV is likely to change all that but she's had lessons in keeping cool in public from the very top.

Early in her career she made a film with Michael Caine. It was called Shadow Run and if you haven't heard of it Rae will be delighted.

She said: "It was amazing to work with Michael Caine but the film was shocking. My agent turned to me at the screening and said `we'll put that one down to experience.'

"The funny thing was years later I met a guy in Miami and he didn't believe I was an actress because every waitress in America is really an actress.

"We were on South Beach in Miami when I saw Michael Caine walking down with his wife Shakira when he stopped and went: `Rae Baker.'

"I was so impressed that he remembered my name and the guy I was with was left picking up his jaw from the floor. It was the funniest thing.

"He then asked us to dinner and we had a meal with Michael and Shakira at his restaurant. What a way to impress a guy - meeting Michael Caine on Miami Beach."

The bloke in question is well gone and Rae has been single for a year. She has a rule that she won't date actors but she has no shortage of suitors at Sun Hill.

In between takes, she has a constant stream of film crew approaching her, cap in hand... begging for a backie.