OCEAN DRIVE – January, 2005
Pamela Anderson Unplugged
The ultimate sex symbol opens up about her roles as mother, author, actress, and – titter not – activist.
By Anna David
When you interview famous people for a living, you tend to get reasonably blasé about the prospect of asking household names to reveal the most personal details about their lives. But knowing that I was going to speak to Pamela Anderson – arguably the most famous face and body of this generation — felt a bit surreal. Asking the perennial Playboy Playmate with the enlarging and diminishing breasts and succession of breakups and reconciliations with Tommy Lee to open up felt a bit like querying Kermit the Frog about where he comes from and why he’s green. For Pamela Anderson, with all her larger-than-life attributes and characteristics, has never seemed quite real.
Perhaps the reason Anderson, 37, seems so mystifying is that she’s a collection of contradictions. A sex goddess with a much circulated honeymoon tape to prove it, she tucks her sons, seven-year-old Dylan and eight-year-old Brandon, into bed most nights, usually hitting the sack long before most vixens would hit the town. The ultimate California girl, Anderson actually hails from Canada, and though she’s the visual personification of perfect health, she suffers from hepatitis C (which, she said when she announced her disease in the spring of 2002, she contracted from a tattoo needle she shared with Lee).
And though one might imagine that a sex goddess like Anderson would spend her free time at pole-dancing class or perfecting her tan on the beach, her regular schedule would put most mere mortals to shame: in addition to her role as PETA’s most prominent celebrity activist, Anderson is working on shoe, clothing and jewelry lines – that is, when she’s not completing her second “novel” (her first, Star, which was based on her own life, was released last August and has been on The New York Times bestseller list), putting together recipes for a PETA cookbook, or penning columns for women’s magazines. As for those two things that are basically synonymous with her name, Anderson’s in on the joke. After all, her production company is named BWFT Productions, which stands for Blonde With Fake Tits Productions.
The acting career that has essentially been on hold since V.I.P. ended in 2002 is about to undergo another upswing. “I’m really getting antsy to work [as an actress] again,” Anderson confesses from her Malibu home, her breathy voice instantly recognizable. Speaking so quickly that at times she sounds like a tape recorder that’s been switched to the amped up, “Chipmunks” speed, Anderson happily discusses her relationship with Lee, her role as lunch monitor at her sons’ school, and how impressed men are when she toasts them bread.
OCEAN DRIVE: What are you working on now?
PAMELA ANDERSON: Well, I always said that I’d never do TV again because four seasons of V.I.P. in two years was so exhausting, but I just partnered with [Just Shoot Meproducer] Steve Levitan to develop a show for Fox. The kids both get out of school at the same time – they’re in first and second grades – so I have a lot more structure. I have the time. And I don’t have a crazy boyfriend. [Laughs.]
