Brenda Bakke was born in Klamath Falls, Oregon and was raised in Portland, Oregon. This girl moved to Los Angeles to study acting at the American Academy of the Dramatic Arts. Brenda played The Wren in Ned Blessing: The Story of My Life and Times; and Selena Coombs in American Gothic. She also appeared in The WB television series Charmed for the episode "The Power of Two".

This classically attractive stage-trained performer has spent a significant portion of her film and TV career playing "bad girls" and other women of rather questionable virtue. Bakke began acting as a teen in local productions in her native Portland, OR before making the move to Los Angeles to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After more stage work, Bakke entered films inauspiciously with a supporting role in the teen sex sequel "Hardbodies 2" (1986). This set the stage for her early feature career as she appeared a series of low-budget genre quickies geared toward video and cable. The reasonable spoof "Hot Shots! Part Deux" (1993) represented a breakthrough of sorts as Bakke played an initially sympathetic romantic interest of Charlie Sheen. The ho-hum actioner "Gunmen" (1994) found her supporting Christopher Lambert and Mario Van Peebles. Bakke was a likeable party girl in "Tales From the Crypt Presents Demon Knight" (1995) and barely registered amid the violent goings-on of "Under Siege 2: Dark Territory" (1995).

Bakke has fared better in TV with episodic guest shots and TV-movies. She had a brief stint as a regular on the Western "Ned Blessing: The Story of My Life and Times" (CBS, 1993) playing a beautiful "sportin' gal" called The Wren. Brenda's next assignment, the supernatural drama "American Gothic" (CBS, 1995), was at least a critical hit. She was well cast as Selena Coombs, perky school marm by day/slinky temptress by night and close confidant of a sinister sheriff. After a highly touted turn as Lana Turner in a pivotal scene in the noirish "L.A. Confidential" (1997), Bakke returned to series work as the mother of a teenager who becomes an undercover cop in the 1999 Fox drama "Ryan Caulfield: Year One".