The Hoff couldn't help but shout "siyabonga" and "sawubona" at everybody in sight. He also believes Michael Knight, the 1980s TV star of Knight Rider, which made him famous, is bigger than James Bond will ever be.

Heck, one of his most memorable moments in South Africa was when he found Knight Rider bed sheets on sale while visiting this country with his father, Joe, 87.

Hasselhoff is still a major drawcard.

Just 20 minutes after The Times joined the club owners on a limousine ride to transport the Hoff from his Sandton hotel to the nightclub yesterday, his personal assistant, Nick Corjan, said he had just been booked to perform at the Sydney Opera House in January.

"Whenever I start feeling sorry for myself, thinking that perhaps I would have loved to be James Bond, I think: 'Who cares?', more people know about Michael Knight than about Bond," said Hasselhoff

He said Baywatch's Mitch Buchannon was "basically Knight Rider in a bathing suit".

"Instead of a talking car, we had babes," he said.

Hasselhoff was affable with the hotel staff and the four scantily dressed women who greeted him.

The media were asked not to quiz him about his past relationship with local star Patricia Lewis, or about his ex-wife, Pamela Bach, or alcohol.

The Hoff will be at the children in the cancer wards at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital and Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital today.

The Hoff is happy to do silly poses or run in slow motion with a bevy of babes on his arm .

"When I was in the UK recently I took pictures with girls in bathing suits and would run in slow motion, and all the papers - even though my shows are a big success there - had headlines saying: 'Will you stop living in the past?', and I would say: 'Baby, you just fell right into it; you printed the picture'."