FROM PLAYBOY TO poetry

From 'Baywatch Babe' to environmentalist, Pamela Anderson's story inspires and is most certainly not yet complete

- MARIAN VOLKWYN

Canadian-American actress, supermodel, media personality and writer Pamela Anderson has aged like fine wine, and I‘m not solely referring to her looks, although 56 and sans make-up looks exceptional on her! I think we are all pretty guilty of missing the woman behind the pseudo-Barbie aesthetic, even when the media preyed on her. We missed the part where she is soft, gentle, humorous, and a lover – but not in the sensual sense of the word.

Instead, we were bombarded with images of her and headlines that dictated who the mainstream media at the time (*cough cough* the all- boys club) wanted us to see her as.

Pamela made the news as Canada’s first centennial baby born. Clearly, she was destined for the spotlight from the moment she emerged on the Earth, foreshadowing a life she would live in front of many a camera. ‘She hit the news the minute she was born,’ says Pamela’s mother, Carol Anderson.

As the blonde bombshell, the ultimate Playboy Playmate, the star of Baywatch, the significant other of Tommy Lee, and the centre of many high-level Hollywood entanglements since, her attention-grabbing roles were mostly prescribed to her, pretty much all of them by men. Very little of what we know Pamela to be was far removed from a masculine counterpart. Somehow, she was always front and centre of the male gaze.

CONTOURS OF AMBITION