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Pamela Anderson: Wedded to the camera
BY JM
Internet’s queen of searches Pamela Anderson has been in the spotlight from the moment she was born. Here is a guided tour.
The camera, it seems, can never stray far from Pamela Anderson. Just when you thought Pamela and her puppies were finally out of the news for good, she has bounced back - she is singing a song with fellow Canadian Bryan Adams, for his anthology due to be out in a a couple of months.
Adams and Anderson have just re-recorded "When You're Gone" together. The two recorded in Los Angeles earlier in August and the the song will be on the US release of the double Anthology CD, which is coming up. Pamela is currently starring in Fox's sitcom "Stacked". The camera, it seems, can never move far from the Pamela spotlight. Bryan & Pamela have known each other several years and her photo is the focal point in Made In Canada.
Last week, there was this hubbub when ex-husband Tommy Lee said that she and Pamela may get back together after all, again turning the spotlight on one of the earliest and hottest celebrities on the Internet. "Absolutely not", retorted Pamela, hotly denying the rumour. The fact remains that she has other more interesting people in attendance, and would not have any reunion, Hollywood-style. Rather, the media reported that it could be an attempt by Tommy Lee to throw some spotlight on his own TV series "Tommy Goes to College", which is currently on air in NBC, and roasted by critics. For attention, what better way than to grab some spotlight reflected off Pamela Anderson!
Pamela's movies bombed the moment they hit the box office. Her TV shows have been weak and unsuccessful. Her marriage cracked up in less than two years. Her court cases have been more in the news than her glamorous career. And her most successful on-screen appearance so far has been a certain home-made honeymoon sex video, which was neither directed nor produced, but was downloaded millions of times. But Pamela Anderson still dominates Internet's smut lands as one of the most-searched porn girl of all time.
Pamela Anderson is 38 now. She was born on July 1, 1967 in Ladysmith, British Columbia in Canada. She was literally born into the spotlight. Her birthday coincided with the centennial year of Canada, and she was the first baby to be born on this day. For this, Pamela Anderson's parents -- a furnace repairman and a waitress- got cash prizes.
Pamela Anderson had an average school education, and she was never too much on the academic side. But Pamela is known to have been very keen on sports, especially volleyball. Pamela Anderson earned the nickname of "Rubber Band" when she was in school, for the sheer flexibility of her body. When she was a child, Pamela Anderson's parents moved to Comox in British Columbia, about 285 miles off Vancouver.
It was in this small town that Pamela Anderson had her first brush with glamour. One fine day, while she was sitting in a library listening to a story-telling session with a bunch of students, a photographer spotted and photographed her. The picture became an instant hit and was soon copyrighted. The marvellous Pamela Anderson photo appeared in several libraries in British Colombia.
As a teenager, Pamela Anderson had a very ordinary life, and she wore braces. She is reported to have written in her school yearbook that she aspired to be a "California beach bum".
When she was 21, Pamela Anderson moved to Vancouver, for the big city life. She worked as a fitness instructor for a while when fate smiled.
One of those days, in 1989, Pamela went to watch a football match with some of her friends. She had a friend working for Labatt beer, who had presented her with a T-shirt, which she was wearing to the match. During the match, a cameraman was looking for a pretty face to show in the stadium's big-screen and spotted her. When Pamela Anderson's face appeared in the giant screen, the stadium virtually erupted. For a second time in her life, the camera had spotted her from a crowd and brought her fame.
Labatt Breweries was watching too. They noticed the crowd reaction to the pretty face, and the fact that the girl was wearing a Labatt T-shirt. Soon, the company approached her to work as their model, and she took up the offer. Soon, her posters appeared in bars and restaurants in Canada. From then on, there was no looking back for Pamela Anderson.
The camera never left Pamela alone in her life. A freelance photographer snapped a few pictures of Pamela Anderson and persuaded her to submit them to Playboy magazine. Playboy jumped at the opportunity, and Pamela was soon flying to Los Angeles. The October 1989 issue of the hugely-popular Playboy had Pamela Anderson on the cover.
The Playboy photoshoot launched her career and sparked a Pamela Anderson fan club. Soon, she was getting offers to work in small TV programmes as host as well as in TV soaps. In 1991, Pamela Anderson starred as Lisa on ABC' "Home Improvement". Here was the next turning point for Pamela.
David Hasslehoff, who produced the cult Baywatch series was a fan of this show. When he saw her on the programme, he knew he had his next star. Soon, Pamela appeared in Baywatch, wearing impossibly tight bikinis and raising heartbeats across the world. She starred as CJ Parker, the skimpily-clad lifeguard in he serial. The tremendous hit that Baywatch was propelled her career and made Pamela Anderson a household name.
Outside Baywatch too, Pamela Anderson has starred in several unremarkable TV serials, including The Taking of Beverly Hills, Snapdragon, Raw Justice, Mike Hammer, The Evolution of Mr. E. etc.
None of them made a mark with either the viewers or the critics. If you thought marriages were a trifle too fast these days, consider this: on New Year's eve 1994, she met Tommy Lee for the first time and within four weeks, she was married to him. Tommy Lee was a drummer for Motley Crue those days and an upcoming artiste. Reports say that the first time he saw her at the New York party, he was so enamoured by her that he walked up to her and licked her face. He chased her to Cancun where she was away in a photoshoot for a sun-tan lotion. There, she gave into his advances and in the first week of February 1995, Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson were man and wife.
Trust Pam to do it in style! She wed Tommy on a beach, with the bride in a bikini and the groom in trunks. Instead of exchanging rings, the couple tattooed each other's names on their bodies. Later, the duo got re-married "just for fun" in silver space suits.
The most atrocious Pamela Anderson movie soon followed. Against the advice of her personal manager Nick Stevens, Pamela Anderson agreed to star in Barb Wire. Pamela's fan sites blame her miscarriage and overwork for the movie's dismal showing. The fact remained that Barb Wire was a disaster from start to end and her "acting" was as good or as bad as that of her any other screen appearances. At the 1997 Razzie Awards, Anderson ‘won’ for Worst New Star. Barb Wire was also nominated for Worst Actress, (Anderson) Worst Original Song, (Welcome to Planet Boom by Tommy Lee), Worst Picture, Worst Screen Couple, for Anderson’s ‘impressive enhancements’ and Worst Screenplay.
Less than two years after the marriage, Pamela filed for divorce. There were reports of physical abuse by Tommy Lee. In 1997, an year after the birth of her first child, Pamela filed for divorce. But the fickleness was not over. Soon, they got back together and their second son was born later that year.
Things took a turn for the worse in 1998, with Pamela Anderson claiming that Tommy had attacked her. He was charged with abuse, as well as illegal firearm possession and was sentenced to six months in prison. She again filed for divorce and for custody of their two children.
The Internet still drools after Pamela Anderson for something else. A Tommy Lee-Pamela Anderson sex video, which was shot by the couple themselves during their honeymoon somehow got stolen and the images made their way into magazines. The Internet, which was picking up steam in the late 1990s, devoured the Pamela Anderson video downloads. Pamela Anderson filed a case against the company that was hawking the intimate video, but later dropped the suit. It was speculated that $10 million had changed hands to settle the suit. Whatever, numerous websites on the Net soon put up free downloads of the Pamela Anderson-Tommy Lee sex video. Yet another another time, the camera had brought her fame, though perhaps not exactly the kind she would have chosen.
After leaving Baywatch in 1997, Pamela Anderson started her own TV serial VIP in 1998. This was dropped in 2002. Pamela soon started taking a keen interest in advocating animal rights. Her name started getting linked to super male model Marcus Schenkenberg. In June 2000, Pamela Anderson dropped "Lee" from her name, making the split with Tommy final. In April of 2001, she started seeing Kid Rock.
In 2002, Pamela said that she would be working with the animated series Stripperella. This was followed by news that she would accompany her new boyfriend on tour. Suddenly, all plans were shelved, as she was diagnosed with hepatitis C. Pamela blamed Tommy Lee for the disease, which she claimed she had contacted from sharing his infected needles. However, Tommy denied this.
Whether Pamela likes or not, the spotlight keeps following her. It may be a home video, a glamorous career, stories in silicone, company with Bryan, Peta promos or Tommy's rantings - but the
BY JM
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