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Anderson was born in Ladysmith,
British Columbia, 90 km northwest of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada,
to 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.
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 her birth, her parents Barry and Carol, and her
brother Gerry Anderson, moved to the town of Comox with Pamela.
After graduating from Highland Secondary School in 1985, Anderson moved to
Vancouver and worked as a fitness instructor. During the summer of 1989,
Pamela 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 twenty one 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, Pamela decided to model for Playboy magazine: she appeared on the
October 1989 cover (credited as Pamela Anderson Ilicic) and decided to
move to Los Angeles to continue her modeling career. She was the February
1990 playmate and has appeared in Playboy several times in the 1990s and
more recently.
After her move to Los Angeles, Anderson bleached her brunette hair blonde
and underwent breast augmentation. In 1991, she landed a minor role on the
United States's hit television sitcom, Home Improvement (1991-1997).
Having gained viewer attention, she landed the role of C.J. Parker
(1992-1997) on Baywatch, and left Home Improvement after its second
season. 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 Pamela Anderson, the show lasted four seasons before being
cancelled in 2002. Anderson stated that she needed to dedicate her time to
raising her children, but many believed that she was retiring.
In March 2001, Christine Evelyn Roth was arrested while sleeping in a
guest room of Anderson's home. She was only charged with the misdemeanor
of trespassing and not the more serious crime of stalking. Roth pleaded
guilty to the charge of trespassing and was deported to her home country,
France. In 2004, Anderson returned to the spotlight. In May she appeared
naked on the cover of Playboy magazine. It was the first time she had
appeared naked on any magazine cover. Later, she posed naked for Stuff and
GQ magazines. Many noticed that her breast size was larger than her
pictorials from 2003.
Anderson became a naturalized citizen of the United States on May 12,
2004, while retaining her Canadian citizenship, for the purpose of
sponsoring her parents (or at least her mother) for a green card. She has
lived in southern California since 1989. Anderson has often spoken
revealingly about her private life. On a visit to the David Letterman show
in 2004, she said she had not been dating for some time, and when
Letterman asked her how she was coping, she responded, "There's not a
square corner left anywhere in my house!" Letterman left that comment
unanswered while the audience hooted.
In 2004, Pamela Anderson released the book Star, co-written by author Eric
Shaw Quinn, in which she describes a young teenager doing different things
in order to reach fame. After this, she began touring the United States,
signing autographs for fans at Wal-Mart stores nationwide. Her second
book, the sequel Star Struck, released in 2005, is a thinly veiled look at
her life with Tommy Lee and the travails of celebrity life.
In January 2005, Anderson confessed that she had got new breast implants,
claiming not to feel like herself without them. Anderson also claimed that
the new breast implants were bigger than her old implants.
In April 2005, Anderson starred in a new FOX sitcom Stacked as Skyler
Dayton, a party girl (with implants) who goes to work at a bookstore.
Stacked was cancelled on May 18, 2006, after two seasons, although some
episodes had not been aired on the network. During the summer of 2005,
(August 14, 2005) Comedy Central created the Roast of Pamela Anderson to
honor the sex symbol for the past decade. During her final speech at the
Roast, Pamela referred to her breasts as "Pancho and Lefty".
In December 2005, NBC cut off a video of Anderson pole dancing topless on
Elton John's "The Red Piano." NBC said that the footage was inappropriate
for primetime. The video was shown on huge screens during the event, while
John was playing a song. Anderson was topless, but stars were painted on
her breasts. In March 2006, it was announced that Anderson would receive a
star on Canada's Walk of Fame thanks to her many years as a model and
actress. She is only the second model to receive a star. In April 2006,
Anderson hosted Canada's Juno Awards, becoming the first non-singer and
model to do so.
Anderson was repeatedly referenced in the 2006 comedy film Borat: Cultural
Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan as the
title character seeks to kidnap and marry her. Anderson appears in person
at the end of the film confronted by Borat in a staged botched abduction.
She has subsequently began filming a comedy, Blonde and Blonder.
In addition to her fame from modeling and acting, Anderson has received a
great deal of press attention for her well-publicized personal life. Her
relationships have made headlines in gossip magazines for years. She
married Tommy Lee, drummer of Mötley Crüe, on February 19, 1995 after
knowing him for only 96 hours and the couple eventually had two sons,
Brandon Thomas Lee (b. June 6, 1996) and Dylan Jagger Lee (b. December 29,
1997). During this time, she was known professionally as Pamela Anderson
Lee. Anderson filed for divorce from him twice and reconciled with him
twice, before the couple finally broke up for good. On February 25, 1998,
Tommy abused Pamela and then was arrested. The next day, Pamela filed for
divorce. On February 28, 1998, the divorce was official two days from the
filing of the divorce. Tommy was sentenced to six months in jail. In May
1998, he had to go to anger management therapy and pay Anderson's legal
fees. In March 2002, Anderson publicly stated that she had contracted the
Hepatitis C virus from Lee (supposedly from sharing tattoo needles), and
began writing a regular column for Jane magazine. In October 2003,
Anderson jokingly said on Howard Stern's radio show that she does not
expect to live more than ten or fifteen years, but this was misconstrued
and taken seriously by many Web sites and tabloids. She however admitted
to newspapers that she still often had sex with him since their divorce.
A pornographic home video of Anderson and Tommy Lee on their honeymoon was
stolen from their home, and made a huge stir on the Internet. Anderson
sued the Internet Entertainment Group, the company that was distributing
the video. Ultimately the courts awarded Anderson and Lee $1.5 million
plus attorney fees for their share of the profits. After this, the company
sold copies of the stolen honeymoon tape across the country. It was very
popular.
A second tape, which was made before the Tommy Lee tape, involving
Anderson and musician Bret Michaels from Poison was later distributed on
the Internet. Frames of the video first appeared in Penthouse magazine in
March 1998. The popularity and profitability of the Anderson and Tommy Lee
video sparked a miniature genre within the porn film industry and since
then many homemade porn videos of celebrities have been released to the
public through home video and Web channels (either with or without the
participants' co-operation).
Since her divorce, she has become engaged to both the model Marcus
Schenkenberg and the singer Kid Rock (Robert J. Ritchie). She broke up
with Schenkenberg in 2001, and broke up with Kid Rock in 2003. It was
announced on July 18, 2006 that she would marry Kid Rock on July 29, 2006
on a yacht near St. Tropez, France. "Feels like I've been stuck in a time
warp," said Anderson in her blog entry. "Not able to let go of MY family
picture ... it's been sad and lonely and frustrating ... I've raised my
kids alone in hope of a miracle. Well my miracle came and went. And came
back and back because he knew that I'd wake up one day and realize that I
was waiting for nothing." "I'm moving on," she declared. "I feel like I'm
finally free ... I'm in love." There was extensive unconfirmed media
speculation that the marriage was pregnancy-related, but the theory was
based only on Anderson's representative's refusal to comment on the
question.
She put her Malibu, California, home up for sale in order to move to a
more private location. In an interview with Gavriel Maynard, Anderson
stated "I don't know why people consider me stupid, I'm actually really
smart."
On November 10, 2006, it was announced that Anderson miscarried while in
Vancouver shooting a new film, Blonde and Blonder. Seventeen days later,
on November 27, 2006 Anderson filed for divorce in Los Angeles County
Superior Court from Kid Rock, citing irreconcilable differences. Some news
reports have suggested that Kid Rock's outrage during a screening of
Borat, in which she plays a cameo role, led to the filing for divorce two
weeks later.
Anderson told talk show host Ellen DeGeneres in September 2007 that she
was engaged. On September 29, Anderson and Paris Hilton's ex-Rick Salomon
applied for a marriage license in Las Vegas. Anderson married Salomon
between her twice nightly appearance at the Planet Hollywood Hotel &
Casino in Hans Klok's magic show in a small wedding ceremony at The Mirage
on October 6, 2007. |
