No News From The Front - EMPIRE May 1996

She's blonde, she's busty, and she's very probably the most famous woman on the planet thanks, in no small part, to the fact that she's very good at taking her clothes off. But can she act? who the hell knows. "It's beautiful outside," Pamela Anderson tells Philip Thomas, "so we're eager to get outside and go play with our dogs..."

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During my brief, crazy, star-crossed relationship with Pamela Anderson, she stood me up twice, and left me three times - the last time for good, just like she promised. I should have known it was doomed. She just couldn't commit to anything - in the space of one 20-minute phone call, for instance, she said, "I don't know" 18 times. But how we laughed at all that life threw at us! Hello, She Lied! (Of which more later). Melisa Parks! (Of whom more later). Really Greasy Little Guys! (Ditto). We had such fun, me and Pamela, Pamela and I, such wild and maddening fun, but when the end came, it was positively harrowing in its finality. It was so bloody ... cruel.

"I'm walking upstairs now," she threatened, breathing down the telephone line. "I'm putting on my shoes."
"But ..." I said.
"It's getting late," she said. "I gotta go."
"Is this it?" I blurted.
"I'm sorry," she said, and I like to think there was a hint of tenderness, perhaps even triste, in among the Californian nasality and the off-hand banality. "But I really gotta go ..."
Click Burr ...

She was meant to ring me on Wednesday night (although she insists she never said she would, so I suppose it doesn't count), and she didn't. She was meant to ring me on Thursday night, and she didn't. She wasn't meant to ring me on Friday night, and she didn't, so that was good. And she was meant to ring me on Saturday night, and she did - nut half-an-hour early. I had two pizzas in the oven, and when the phone went I was attending to a bowel movement / Armitage Shanks interface that was developing quite nicely, I felt, and had every chance of coming to a satisfactory conclusion.

"It's your phone call," shouted a voice from the kitchen. "It's Pamela Anderson on the phone."

It's Pamela Anderson on the phone from some beach house on the Californian coast, shaggy-haired and breathless, no doubt, from some mind-boggling gymnastic sex with that Tommy Lee drummer bloke from the �ptly nam�d M�tley Cr�e, and keen to get off to some stupidly chic breakfast date before going skiing in the morning and surfing after brunch, or whatever it is you're suppose to be able to do in California. And I have two rapidly crisping pizzas in the oven here in drizzly North London, and I am literally having a crap time. Not a great start to a balanced and meaningful relationship, but, undeterred, I restore my modesty, bound out of the bathroom, pick up the phone and hear nothing bu the dialling tone. Pamela is out of my life.

And not for the first time...

Pamela Anderson has got a movie coming out in six weeks' time and a baby coming out three weeks after that. It's all happening for the Baywatch Beauty, as usual, but the busy bee has agreed to call me to talk about her latest film, Barb Wire, which neither of us has seen and, in common with most of humanity, probably never will. Actually, that's not fair - we'll get to see it, all in good time, but it does make the conversation a little strained at first, since the whole point is to talk about something neither of us knows anything about. When Pamela rings me back seconds after the first telephone catastrophe, the obvious opening gambit is to ask why on earth she's been standing me up. Where did she get to the other night? What is it with me and her? Does she want this thing to work or not?

"I'm sorry" she says. Her voice sounds like it belongs to a 12-year-old Californian Valley Girl, not a 28-year-old woman from Vancouver, Canada. She finishes almost every sentence with a little giggle, and attempts to fill every microsecond of silence with words of any description. She's really quite charming, endearingly uncomplicated, but I'm not sure I have her undivided attention, since she has a strange habit of agreeing with me, then unexpectedly changing her mind and immediately not agreeing with me. It's almost as if there's a multimillionaire rock star (M�tley Cr�e have sold around 20 million records to hard-livin' teenagers since 1980) waiting impatiently at the door, dog leash in hand. Which, as it turns out, there is.

"I'm sorry I couldn't get to you the other day, it's been crazy around here with these paparazzi photographers hunting us down. When I was supposed to call you, I had the sheriff over at my house."
The sheriff?
"Yeah! Heehee!"
What was he doing at you house?
"Basically escorting people away from my place, because it was getting a little ridiculous and I'm feeling a little uncomfortable, because I'm due to have my baby in nine weeks. If it was a man jumping out of the bushes at me without a camera, I'd probably kick him in the face, but since he's got a camera, I'm not allowed to beat him up. It's very upsetting!"
Why can't you beat him up? In case he takes a picture?
"Yeah!" says Pamela. "Well, no. Because they sue you. It's ridiculous, but anyway, so I had to leave my house that time, and that was just about when I was supposed to call you."
How exciting! So you had to actually leave with the sheriff?
"Yeah!"
Where did he take you?

The bit at the end there - the "No baby! Not Yet!" bit - that was a trifle disconcerting, if I'm being absolutely honest. It was screamed in response to one of the grumpiest sounds I have ever heard. The sound of a devil-child rocker with tattoos and a legendary manhood asking if, for Christ's sake, his wife, who happens to be the World's Most Desirable Woman, had finished on the phone with that dork from England yet. As far as I was aware, we'd only just started. But Pamela's got other ideas.

"It's beautiful outside," she says suddenly. "There's not a cloud in the sky, so we're eager to get outside and go play with out dogs."

Okay, fine. I think I'm getting a feel for where I stand. Pamela seems to think there's no future for us - and hardly any present, if you want the truth. But if only she could see what a caring, sharing, listening type I am, then a brief conversation with me might rank slightly higher than taking some dogs for a walk. And if only I can get her not to change her mind immediately after agreeing with me, we might be on to something. So here goes.

Me: Where do you live?
Her: By the beach.
Me: Santa Monica?
Her: Yeah!
Me: It's nice there
Her: No... further north.


Oh! Well, at least it's close to the Baywatch location, where Pamela will be heading come August to do a whole other batch of episodes with the rest of the over-developed beautiful young people (and David Hasselhoff), the better to continue the money-making machine that the world's most popular TV show has now become. Baywatch has made Pamela a worldwide superstar, nowhere more so than in Britain, were she is mobbed in the streets, and from where she receives huge wodges of e-mails every day. It must be tough-ish, living life in such a spotlight, even when you encourage it, and indeed Pamela is getting a little upset about the constant intrusions.

"It's hard, it's frustrating, but it's all part of it, it's not something you complain about," she muses. "But in some ways when you want your privacy, and when you want to go round and buy your Pampers and your baby stuff, it just seems like there's private moments and there's moments where it seems appropriate. I have nothing against anybody, lots of the people that I've met are really nice, but some of them, like the people around here, a couple of the ones around here are really greasy little guys that, you know, if they were following me without a camera I would report them as stalkers. I don't feel comfortable with these strange people!"

But what about Tommy Lee? My Goodness me, if ever there was a gentleman who could see off a bunch of greasy little paps, it's him. Why don't you just set him on them?

"He's has to be good!" says Pamela. "Unfortunately."
But Tommys's a hard nut, isn't he? Hard drinkin', hard livin', biting the heads off whippets all that stuff?
"He used to. I don't know... He doesn't have time for that any more."
Doesn't he?
"He works too hard."
That must be dull.
"Since I've known him, he's... I've never had that kind of lifestyle," says Pamela. "We still have a lot of fun, we still do a lot of things together, we don't go out very much, but we entertain at home a lot. Well, we did - now we don't. Now we're being very good. I have nine weeks to go, so we've been focusing on having a baby and living a healthier lifestyle."


You may have read that the baby Pam's been waiting for (after two miscarriages) is going to be called Brandon Thomas Lee. You may have read all sorts of things about Pamela Anderson. She's not the world's shyest, retiringist type, what with the countless Playboy spreads (including a record-breaking six covers) and the Really, Really Rude Pictures (of which more later). But when you talk to someone like Pamela, you really need to know from the horse's mouth how much of what's written is true. So, let's test her out on some of the more recent tabloid tales.

Story one. She pulled out of a movie called Hello. She lied and was sued for $3.2 million. Yes?

"No," says Pamela. "They were trying to sue me for more than that , and I didn't pull out of it, I read the script and they said I showed interest, but I didn't and that has all worked itself out anyway. But everyone tries to sue you and we just say, 'Get in line, get in line, get to the back of the line, we'll get to you soon, take a number...'"

Who else is suing you then ?

"I don't know, who knows ?" she says merrily. (A slight diversion: Saying "I don't know" seems to be inordinately uncomfortable for many people - does it not ? - so loathe are most folk to admit there may be something in the universe which they haven't figured out yet. Pamela is a glorious exception. Pray continue.) "Oh just a lot of people, who knows? If a drum stick breaks and shoots across a room and hits someone they'll sue for, who knows, emotional distress, who know? It's ridiculous!"

Story two. You, in a jealous fir of pique-like anger, got your stand-in Melissa Parks fired from Baywatch. True or false?

"She got herself fired for lying and stealing a Baywatch suit and misrepresenting the show," corrects Pamela. "She made up a story that said the producers saw her and thought she looked like me and hired her. But she was on the show long before me, so maybe they saw me and thought that I looked like her and they hired me! You know, I don't know."

Story three. You take spooky herbal stuff like echinacea and goldenseal, whatever they are. Hmmm?

"Whaaaatt!? Oh my God! Echinacea! I take echinacea, but I don't know too much about Chinese 'erbs and Indian spiritual medicines. I don't take goldenseal root. You can't take it when you're pregnant. It's a combination usually found with echinacea, which is for your immune system, and I guess it's just one of those healthy... I really don't know what goldenseal is, but it's probably up the same alley, along the same lines as your immunities. I don't take echinacea all that much, just if I'm around a bunch of sick people."

And what of The Pictures? The Really, Really Rude Pictures? The Astonishingly Frank, Well, Lets Be Honest Pornographic Pictures? These very possibly apocryphal images of Tommy Lee and Pamela up to all sorts of naughtiness were, some alleged, deliberately leaked by the couple to the press, for reasons unknown (though only a couple of "top shelf" magazines have, I believe, published them). Others say that you can't be sure that it is the beauteous twosome in the picture, and actually it's probably a couple of lookalike�s. What's the story there?

"Oh Yeah," says Pamela hesitantly. "Erm.. those pictures. Well, they're stolen property, so if anybody's printed them, they're breaking the law basically. Someone stole them out of our house. There were all sorts of rumours that we had some photographer to take these pictures, but believe me, if we hired a photographer we wouldn't have blurry Polaroids. That would have been a waste of money!"

So they are yours? And they are you?

"Yes, and I wish I had them back because I want them for our photo album. I don't want them for the world to see."

There is a pause. The thing is, I simply cannot summon up the courage to tell Pamela that I have seen copies of the pictures, gawped in amazement at copies of the pictures, and I could probably track them down again if she really does want them back...

Still, it has to be said that most of the press that Pamela Anderson gets is pure joy, PR-wise. Particularly in the UK, she is quite simply adored by one and all. And it must be more than her being fabulous looking, because Sophie Marceau is probably more beautiful, and no one clogs her e-mail, or at least not as far as we know. People have said it's because she looks like a child. Because of her breasts. Who knows? Maybe she does. So, any theories as to why you're so massively popular with, well, everybody?

"I don't know, I don't know," says Pamela after some thought. "Because I really haven't done a lot, I've been in LA for six years and sometimes I'm confused by all the attention, especially in England, but i guess the show is really popular, and David Hasselhoff is really popular and i think that... I don't know, I can't begin to understand why. Really."

But let's face it. There are lots of beautiful women in California, aren't there? What's so special about you? You must have thought about it.

"I don't know. I really don't know! I don't know. I think I'm just straightforward and honest and I'm candid about things and that's why I don't understand the misunderstandings, because if anybody were to wonder about anything, they could just ask me and i'd tell them, there's no charade or manipulation going on with me. When all the lies are written, I just go. 'Why did they say that, why didn't they just call and ask?"

And that assessment turns out to be gloriously true when we finally get around to the subject of Barb Wire. There is no charade or pretence her at all. In fact, there is so little selling going on that you can't help but wonder whether the film will be a complete mess. Most movie stars could work in telephone sales, cold-calling to off-load condos in Chernobyl, so well-honed are their bullshit-creating mechanisms. But Pamela is wonderfully straight. Here's how it went.

Me: We haven't seen Barb Wire over here. What's it like? Hello? Hello? I do not bastard believe this... Hello? (I slam the phone down)
The phone: Ring, ring!
Pamela: Hello? What happened there?
Me: You left me again.
Pamela: Heehee!
Me: I was saying, we haven't seen Barb Wire over here. what's it like?
Pamela: I haven't seen it either, I haven't seen anything on film, just a rough video.
Me: And how does it look, what you've seen so far?
Pamela: I'm excited about it. I'm excited about the music. The soundtrack is incredible. Everybody is on it. I think it's going to be a good thing. I mean, I hope so. You never know. It's opening May 3 all over, so we'll see. You know what? It's a lot of fun.
Me: Well, let's hope so.
Pamela: Yeah!


Let's indeed hope so, although it could possibly be true, as has been quoted in the not-so-quality press, that Pamela is no longer bothered about movies, that the only career worth worrying about is motherhood...

"I wanna do more things, but you never know," she says. "I've gotta see how this movie goes and how people respond to it and we'll see after that, but right now I'm really focussed on having a baby and seeing what kind of time I'll have. I don't wanna do the whole nanny thing. My mom's moving here, my mom and dad are moving to California. So I wanna... Tommy and I wanna raise our own children."

Are there some favourite directors you'd like to work with if you make more movies?

"I really don't know. If I could work with David Hogan (director of Barb Wire) for every movie after this, I would do it. He's my favourite."

And what about Tarantino? Scorsese? Spielberg?

"I don't know. I loved working with David, that's all I know. Anybody beyond that, I don't really know. But if anyone said they wanted to work with me, we would see, I don't know, it depends on the project, but David's my favourite, I'd do anything for him!"

Of course, even if there aren't any more films, there's been a lot of talk of the New Bardot, what with the sex kitten bit and the blonde hair and the pout and the Playboy spreads (BB did three to PA's six). What does the woman herself think? Fancy a bit of the New Bardot thang?

"Well, that's a compliment!" squeals Pamela, putting her hand over the receiver. "Just a minute, honey, one minute okay, baby? (Takes her hand away) I'm walking upstairs now, I'm putting on my shoes. Er, yeah, I loved her whole presence and everything about her, but I don't know, I have my own life, I don't think I could be a new anybody."

And with a brief thank you and good luck, Pamela Anderson is gone. She has her shoes on, she has her dogs on her leash, she has the Really Greasy little Guys in attendance, and she has Tommy waiting impatiently for her downstairs, presumably with my name on a bullet in one of his (presumably) many hand-guns.

Pamela Anderson: Bimbo or Bardot?

I don't know. I really don't...