Wham! Bam! It's Pam

Interview, Nov, 1998 by Hal Rubenstein

Pamela Anderson the actress seems almost superfluous to her truer calling: phenomenon. She is a celebrity storm so enormous that everything she does, from the moment she gets out of (or into) bed, seems to zoom around the world before she's even had time to adjust her makeup.

I know you won't believe me, but she's really a little bit of a thing. The kind of girl your mother would call cute as a button. In fact, when Pamela Anderson curls up on the couch in her motor home, on location for her new TV series V.I.P., she barely fills up one cushion. How could anyone this pert and adorable (OK, OK, there's some awesome cleavage, too) cause a rampage in Cannes, a logjam on the Internet, and a mad dash to the back of the video store? How could her smallest private moments become so hugely public that everything she does seems to draw an audience?

Amazing what a few layouts in a magazine, marriage to a spoiled rock star, and a purloined tape can do. But if you're expecting someone from the Brigitte Nielsen School for the Notorious, forget it. Pamela Anderson is no grandstanding, gold-digging, Cindy Adams-worshiping, Spandex-sporting virago who regards getting her name in print as essential to her existence as weekly nail wrappings.

From the afternoon she was discovered by a beer company - when her pretty face was inadvertently splashed across a stadium JumboTron - through her Playboy pictorials and her stints as Ms. Tool Time and the beach babe whom half of America was willing to drown for and the leather cinched-till-it-pinched bitch named Barb Wire, Pamela Anderson has led an existence to rival Candide's. It is to her credit that, after everything that's turned her into a semiregular on Entertainment Tonight, she still has the naivete of Voltaire's young hero.

Unfortunately, her naivete is also the source of much of the confusion that often surrounds her. Anderson finds solace in her two children by Tommy Lee, Dylan and Brandon, with occasional visits from Gidget's dream date, surfer Kelly Slater. And she's excited about her new show. She's excited about a fresh start. It makes her eyes twinkle as if she's starting in a Doris Day remake. It just goes to show you: Even if everyone's seen proof that you've lost your virginity, you don't have to lose your innocence.

HAL RUBENSTEIN: When I told people I was interviewing Pamela Anderson, they all said, "Wow! We love her. She's so cool."

PAMELA ANDERSON: ". . . but she's always in trouble!" It's so funny when I hear stories like this, though. Because you don't realize people know who you are. After all these covers, all these interviews, it becomes kind of surreal. But I'm beginning to believe that it's only the journalists who are saying bad things, especially the ones who make up stuff when they can't talk to you directly. It's no fun if you're nice. But I've never met anyone who said anything bad to me in person.

HR: Right before the release of your 1996 movie, Barb Wire, I remembering seeing a picture of you with no makeup. And I went, "Wow, she's pretty."

PA: Aw . . .

HR: Then I watched Barb Wire and it was like . . .

PA: AGGGHHH!!!! [laughs]

HR: "Why is she doing this?"

PA: It wasn't supposed to turn out like it did. When I saw the comic book the movie's based on. I thought, Oh, my God, she's on a motorcycle in leather, crazy, with big hair, glamorous. This is hysterical. It's totally me. It was going to be a dark comedy, real cartoony. Then, before going into production, I went to Cannes to promote it, got all this attention, and Polygram, the movie's backer, went, "Maybe this is bigger than we thought." They began changing it, trying to make it much more commercial. More action, less humor, a different director. They changed the script six million times. I wound up going against my instincts, so it was really difficult for me. I wanted to keep it tongue-in-cheek, but it didn't work out that way. All the irony was gone. Still, there's this little cult of different people who love that movie. I mean, I know a lot of drag queens who dress up like Barb Wire.

HR: If Barb Wire didn't turn out as you'd hoped, are you more amused when you watch old episodes of Baywatch?

PA: No. I've never seen an episode of Baywatch.

HR: You've never seen the show?

PA: No. I can't watch myself on television.

HR: [laughs] Why not?

PA: Believe it or not, neither could Tommy. I would never let him watch an episode. I watched part of one once, and I almost fainted. I never felt really confident in what I was doing in the past. I don't regret it. It was a positive experience for me, and it did me a lot of good. I mean, a lot of good! But, c'mon, what was I supposed to do? Go home and have Baywatch parties and have my friends come over and watch me on television? Yet on the new show, I watch the dailies every day.

HR: I've heard you are executive producing V.I.P. but you didn't want to make that fact public because you figured everybody would laugh.

PA: Exactly.

HR: Well, I won't, so tell me. [laughs]

PA: I had a choice to do a network sitcom or something for syndication. But because of what happened on the movie, I wanted to be a part of the creative process. I helped assemble this show and have been involved in everything from hiring production designers and art directors to casting people. I have strong opinions about what I want to play and what I think TV is missing. I loved shows like I Dream of Jeannie and Gilligan's Island - silly stuff, really light and entertaining. V.I.P. is all bright colors and daylight, and full of lots of crazy clothes. In a way, it's like the Spice Girls Bodyguard Agency. Except everyone else is being very serious about what they do and then they throw me in the middle of it wearing something ridiculous.