Pamela Denise Anderson (born July 1, 1967) is a
Canadian-born
actress,
sex symbol,
glamour model,
producer,
author, and former
show girl. Anderson is best known for her roles on the television series
Home Improvement,
Baywatch, and
V.I.P. She was chosen as a
Playmate of the Month for
Playboy magazine in February 1990.
For a time, she was known as
Pamela Anderson Lee (or
Pamela Lee Anderson) after marrying
Mötley Crüe drummer,
Tommy Lee. She holds both
American and
Canadian citizenship.
Anderson was born in
Ladysmith,
British Columbia, the daughter of Carol, a waitress, and Barry Anderson, a furnace repairman.
Her great-grandfather, Juho Hyytiäinen, was
Finnish, a native of
Saarijärvi, and left Finland in 1908
changing his name to Anderson when he arrived as an immigrant
Anderson has
Russian ancestry on her mother's side.
Last year she was told that her great-great-grandmother has emigrated from
Russia in
Netherlands
The newborn Anderson won fame as Canada's "Centennial Baby", because she was thought to have been the first baby born on Canada's
Centennial Day (she was born at 4:08 in the morning). However, the
Campbell River Upper Islander of July 5, 1967 reported a baby born two hours earlier on the same Canada Day
After graduating from
Highland Secondary School in 1985, Anderson moved to
Vancouver and worked as a fitness instructor. During the summer of 1989, Anderson went with her friends to a
BC Lions game at
BC Place; at some point during the game she was shown on the stadium screen wearing a
Labatt's t-shirt, causing the crowd to cheer for the 21-year-old Anderson.
She was taken down to the field to get an ovation from the crowd.
Labatt's immediately offered Anderson a modeling contract and she accepted. In late 1989, Anderson decided to model for
Playboy magazine. She first appeared as their October 1989 cover girl. At this stage in her modeling career, she had decided to live in
Los Angeles to further pursue her career ambitions.
She became a centerfold for
Playboy when the magazine chose her to be their Playmate of the Month for their February 1990 issue. Anderson has since appeared in
Playboy several times
in the 1990s and
the following decade.
After her move to
Los Angeles, Anderson bleached her brunette hair blonde and underwent breast augmentation and returned with diameters of 32.5 centimetres. In 1991, she landed a minor role as the original "
Tool Time girl" on the hit television
sitcom,
Home Improvement. She left the show after two seasons and landed the role of
C. J. Parker on
Baywatch.
Anderson was still modeling for
Outdoor Life and appearing on the cover of the magazine each year. Her role as C.J. Parker gave her more popularity and gained her attention from international viewers. She returned to
Baywatch for the 2003 reunion movie,
Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding. She also made appearances on
The Nanny as Fran's rival, Heather Biblow.
In 1996, she appeared in a feature film,
Barb Wire, as a character known as Barbara Rose Kopetski, which was mistakenly thought by some to have been her real name. The movie, a thinly-veiled futuristic remake of
Casablanca, failed to achieve commercial success. During the filming of
Barb Wire, Anderson suffered a miscarriage. In April 1997, she guest-hosted
Saturday Night Live.
During the beginning of the show, Anderson said, "You know, if you're nervous on stage, you actually should be naked!" She then began a striptease. Her breasts, however, were covered by a small flesh-colored bra and she also wore a crotch patch that was also flesh colored (though they were still blurred out for the sake of the joke). The segment became fodder for late-night comedians for the following weeks. She also appeared on one of two covers for the September issue of
Playboy; the other cover pictured
Jenny McCarthy.
In September 1998, Anderson starred in her produced series
V.I.P. It was very poorly received and a critical bomb. However, with many people tuning in just to see her, the show lasted four seasons before being canceled in 2002. Anderson stated that she needed to dedicate her time to raising her children, but many believed that she was retiring.
