"Come on, let's get out of her," says Heidi Mark, a mischievous grin flickering across her face. Then, in a voice breathy, sultry and suggestive, she adds, "I'll make you happy, baby." A second later the spell is broken. "That is so not me!" she squeals, embarrassed. It is, in fact, Bebe Quinn, the character she plays in a TV movie called Deadline for Murder: From the Files of Edna Buchanan. Heidi's character is "dangerous, cool and 24 - a total femme fatale," she explains. The real Heidi Mark is also 24, loyal, fiercely independent and unlike Bebe, would never ride some squirrelly gangster's coattails to the top. "I never wanted to rely on anybody or anything," she says.

We caught up with Miss July as she lounged in her Santa Monica condo. She was in repose -- but studying Bebe's lines. "I'd rather work than rest," she asserts. Born in Ohio and raised in West Palm Beach, Heidi has been a hurricane of activity since arriving in Los Angeles a year ago. "I've been lucky enough to have worked nonstop," says the former model and Hooters employee, rattling off roles such as a recurring one on The Young and the Restless and guest spots on Baywatch, plus a host of other shows and movies.

Heidi keeps her personal life low-key. "Everything here is such a scene," she says of L.A. "We rarely go out." The "we" includes her current beau, former Motley Crue-man Vince Neil. But Heidi chafes at the notion that she's on of those models who dates only rock stars. "I've been involved with a policeman, a disc jockey, a construction worker - people who are worlds apart," she says.

Despite her devotion to hard work, Christianity and a modest lifestyle, Heidi often seems to find herself in the center of a scandal. At the age of four, she shocked the audience with her rendition of "Away in a Manger" in her church's Christmas play. "I was swaying my hips through the whole song," she recalls, giggling. "I got in so much trouble!" More recently, the tabloids blared: GIRL CRAZY O.J. CARRIED ON PASSIONATE AFFAIR WITH PLAYBOY PINUP. "It's all lies," she says. "I can laugh at it now, but it was really hard for me." She despises traffic in Los Angeles, but otherwise Heidi says she can't complain about her life in the fast lane. "It's been an interesting 24 years," she says. "I can't wait to see the next 24." We'll be watching, too.

-- Mark Ehrman