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Pamela Anderson Finally Feels Like an Actress, 32 Years after 'Baywatch'

Pamela Anderson, 57, has been on the awards circuit over the last few months. Ben STANSALL / AFP
Pamela Anderson, 57, has been on the awards circuit over the last few months. Ben STANSALL / AFP
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Pamela Anderson Finally Feels Like an Actress, 32 Years after 'Baywatch'

Pamela Anderson, 57, has been on the awards circuit over the last few months. Ben STANSALL / AFP
Pamela Anderson, 57, has been on the awards circuit over the last few months. Ben STANSALL / AFP

After winning rave reviews for her turn in the film "The Last Showgirl", Pamela Anderson is now dreaming of doing theatre as the 1990s glamour model seeks to reinvent herself again.

The 57-year-old, who shot to global fame as lifeguard CJ Parker in "Baywatch", told AFP that playing a fading showgirl in Gia Coppola's recently released film had made her feel like a real actress for the first time.

"This (role) came to me as a surprise, when I thought it was the end of my career as an actress," she said during a trip to Paris.

"Now I feel like an actress. But I didn't really know if I was before. I was just doing the best I could."

The New York Times said Anderson was "dazzling" in the role, while Britain's The Guardian said it had "single-handedly rewritten the way she is viewed as an actor".

Coppola, granddaughter of "Godfather" director Francis Ford Coppola, pursued Anderson for the role in "The Last Showgirl" after watching a Netflix documentary about her life, "Pamela: A Love Story".

Anderson's late-career bloom echoes the success of another 1990s icon, Demi Moore, who also challenged the entertainment industry's treatment of older women with her brilliant performance in Oscar-nominated "The Substance" last year.

The public endorsements of Anderson's showgirl portrayal -- including a Golden Globe nomination -- have given her the confidence to reveal new ambitions and challenge the perceptions forged by her early career in a swimsuit.

"I think being part of pop culture can be a little bit of a curse because you become famous for one thing," Anderson said.

"But I've always loved cinema. I've always loved theatre. I hope to do a Tennessee Williams play one day. I would love that. Why can't you imagine it? You've just gotta keep surprising people. That's my goal," she added.

'Wasn't boring'

Anderson's personal life has had as many turns as her career, but she said she is now at peace with her "messy" trajectory.

She has been married at least six times -- twice to the same man -- and one union, with movie mogul Jon Peters, lasted just 12 days.

"I have appreciation for my wild and messy life because I have so much to draw from," she told AFP. "And it definitely wasn't boring. Hard at times, and silly at times, ridiculous at times.

"But that's the way you're supposed to live."

She is back living on Vancouver Island in her native Canada, where she grew up, making pickles and working on recipes for her new sideline as a plant-based cooking guru.

She has her own TV cooking show "Pamela's Cooking with Love" and released a cookbook last year.

As well as animal rights activism, she released an autobiography in 2023, insisting publicly that she wrote it herself after rejecting advice from her literary agent that she should employ a ghostwriter.

"I can write, you stupid shit, give me some credit" was her reaction, she told The Times newspaper afterwards.

"And so I wrote it."

It revealed her tumultuous upbringing with volatile parents, as well as childhood sexual abuse.

"I don't really know what's next. There's a lot of opportunity out there, but I'm okay with living in the mystery of what's next," she told AFP.

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Entertainment

‘Happy Face’ Looks at Ripple Effects of True Crime

Annaleigh Ashford, from left, Dennis Quaid and Melissa G. Moore attend a special screening of the Paramount+ television series "Happy Face" at Metrograph on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)
Annaleigh Ashford, from left, Dennis Quaid and Melissa G. Moore attend a special screening of the Paramount+ television series "Happy Face" at Metrograph on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)
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‘Happy Face’ Looks at Ripple Effects of True Crime

Annaleigh Ashford, from left, Dennis Quaid and Melissa G. Moore attend a special screening of the Paramount+ television series "Happy Face" at Metrograph on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)
Annaleigh Ashford, from left, Dennis Quaid and Melissa G. Moore attend a special screening of the Paramount+ television series "Happy Face" at Metrograph on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)

The new Paramount+ series "Happy Face" has all the elements of a gripping true-crime yarn: A serial killer, his estranged daughter, a race to get an innocent man off death row. But perhaps the most intriguing part? How it examines the warping nature of true crime itself.

"I was less interested in the specific psychology of a serial killer or glorifying the murders or seeing violence against women on screen," says Jennifer Cacicio, executive producer and showrunner. "I just feel like we’ve seen that. I was very interested in making a true crime show told through a different lens."

"Happy Face," which begins airing Thursday, is inspired by the true story of Melissa Moore, whose father was a prolific serial killer infamous for drawing smiley faces on letters to the media and prosecutors. She was just 15 when he was captured.

Decades later, as an adult with her own children, she finds herself drawn back into his orbit as she sets out to save an innocent man for a crime her father committed. She also has to tell her daughter the truth about her grandfather.

Starring Annaleigh Ashford and Dennis Quaid, "Happy Face" is told from a female point of view and looks at how a shameful secret can echo through generations. It's also about the push and pull of infamy, with horrendous crimes somehow remaining an alluring draw.

"There’s a lot of crime dramas out there that I think are very male-centric. It’s either about the cops are the cool guys or the criminals are the cool guys, and it’s all about kicking in doors. I’ve written on those shows and they’re fun and they serve a purpose. And I think that I really wanted to try something different," Cacicio says.

"What is it like for the rest of the family when there’s this shameful secret and this series of crimes and these acts of violence and what are the ripple effects on everybody involved?"

Ashford, who earned a Tony Award nomination playing a serial killer on Broadway in "Sweeney Todd," plays Moore with tenderness and anger, saying she was interested in exploring generational trauma.

"It’s one of the worst nightmares," she says. "The worst nightmare of all is having a family member be a victim. And then the second worst nightmare is having a family member be the perpetrator. So what would you do if you’re a parent or your sibling or your spouse or your child committed an atrocity?"

Moore previously shared her story in the bestselling memoir, "Shattered Silence" and the 2018 "Happy Face" podcast, reaching out to her father's victims and advocating for other family members of killers. Cacicio was one of a number of writers interested in telling her story for TV.

Cacicio approached Moore with this pitch: "If you want someone who’s a straight-up journalist, who’s just going to tell exactly the story of the podcast, you should let someone else do it," she told her. "There’s also an opportunity for it to be a bigger story that’s asking some questions about true crime."

Cacicio and Moore, it turned out had plenty in common. They were the same age, and both the oldest of three kids. Both had close relationships with their fathers, who hid other lives — Moore's was a killer and Cacicio served time in prison for drug dealing.

"Obviously, the crimes are different, the circumstances are different. But I think, in my family, it was something we didn’t talk about and it was something I didn’t want my friends to know," says Cacicio.

"A lot of it was really personal to me. And I think that’s what made her trust me — that I really understood the feelings, even if I didn’t necessarily understand the specific circumstances."

Quaid plays Moore's father, but unlike other roles he's taken that involve a living person, he had no intention of meeting the prisoner. He didn't want to glorify the killer but also "Happy Face" isn't that kind of show.

"This is told from Melissa’s point of view, and I think it’s actually truer than his point of view, because I think she knows him much better than he knows himself," he says. "I think he shows emotions like a little boy who’s trying to talk himself out of a whipping."

Cacicio says it's time we took a look at the explosion in popularity of true crime, in which women are often the victims but women are also the chief consumers.

"Are we obsessed with these stories because we’re trying to protect ourselves in case the worst happens?" she asks. "I read somewhere that it’s an act of normalizing your own experiences, because usually it’s whatever you’re watching is worse than what’s happened to you. So it kind of like makes you feel better about your own traumas."