Pamela Anderson Finally Feels Like an Actress, 32 Years after 'Baywatch'
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.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arab News
28-07-2025
- Arab News
Sarajevo street art marks out brighter future
SARAJEVO: Bullet holes still pockmark many Sarajevo buildings; others threaten collapse under disrepair, but street artists in the Bosnian capital are using their work to reshape a city steeped in history.A half-pipe of technicolor snakes its way through the verdant Mount Trebevic, once an Olympic bobsled route — now layered in ever-changing art.'It's a really good place for artists to come here to paint, because you can paint here freely,' Kerim Musanovic told AFP, spraycan in hand as he repaired his work on the former site of the 1984 Sarajevo his mural of a dragon, his painting's gallery is this street art hotspot between the most of his work, he paints the fantastic, as far removed from the divisive political slogans that stain walls elsewhere in the Balkan nation.'I want to be like a positive view. When you see my murals or my artworks, I don't want people to think too much about it.'It's for everyone.'During the Bosnian war, 1992-1995, Sarajevo endured the longest siege in modern conflict, as Bosnian Serb forces encircled and bombarded the city for 44 on the city left over 11,500 people dead, injured 50,000 and forced tens of thousands to in the wake of a difficult peace, that divided the country into two autonomous entities, Bosnia's economy continues to struggle leaving the physical scars of war still evident around the city almost three decades on.'After the war, segregation, politics, and nationalism were very strong, but graffiti and hip-hop broke down all those walls and built new bridges between generations,' local muralist Adnan Hamidovic, also known as rapper Frenkie, vividly remembers being caught by police early in his career, while tagging trains bound for Croatia in the northwest Bosnian town of 43-year-old said the situation was still tense then, with police suspecting he was doing 'something political.'For the young artist, only one thing mattered: 'Making the city your own.'Graffiti was a part of Sarajevo life even during the war, from signs warning of sniper fire to a bulletproof barrier emblazoned with the words 'Pink Floyd' — a nod to the band's 1979 album The Roses — fatal mortar impact craters filled with red resin — remain on pavements and roads around the city as a memorial to those killed in the he was young, Frenkie said the thrill of illegally painting gripped him, but it soon became 'a form of therapy' combined with a desire to do something significant in a country still recovering from war.'Sarajevo, after the war, you can imagine, it was a very, very dark place,' he said at Manifesto gallery where he exhibited earlier this year.'Graffiti brought life into the city and also color.'Sarajevo's annual Fasada festival, first launched in 2021, has helped promote the city's muralists while also repairing buildings, according to artist and founder Benjamin Cengic.'We look for overlooked neighborhoods, rundown facades,' Cengic team fixes the buildings that will also act as the festival's canvas, sometimes installing insulation and preserving badly damaged homes in the aim is to 'really work on creating bonds between local people, between artists.'Mostar, a city in southern Bosnia, will also host the 14th edition of its annual street art festival in unemployment nearing 30 percent in Bosnia, street art also offers an important springboard to young artists, University of Sarajevo sociology professor Sarina Bakic said.'The social context for young people is very difficult,' Bakic Radosevic, a researcher at Finland's Jyvaskyla University, said graffiti allowed youth to shake off any 'nationalist narrative or imposed identity.''It's a way of resisting,' Radosevic said.
Al Arabiya
18-07-2025
- Al Arabiya
Alan Bergman, Oscar-winning lyricist who helped write 'The way we were,' dies at 99
Alan Bergman, the Oscar-winning lyricist who teamed with his wife Marilyn for an enduring and loving partnership that produced such old-fashioned hits as 'How Do You Keep the Music Playing?,' 'It Might Be You,' and the classic 'The Way We Were,' has died at 99. Bergman died late Thursday at his home in Los Angeles, family spokesperson Ken Sunshine said in a statement Friday. The statement said Bergman had in recent months suffered from respiratory issues but continued to write songs till the very end. The Bergmans married in 1958 and remained together until her death in 2022. With collaborators ranging from Marvin Hamlisch and Quincy Jones to Michel Legrand and Cy Coleman, they were among the most successful and prolific partnerships of their time, providing words and occasional music for hundreds of songs, including movie themes that became as famous as the films themselves. Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Tony Bennett, and many other artists performed their material, and Barbra Streisand became a frequent collaborator and close friend.
Asharq Al-Awsat
10-07-2025
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Humanoid Robot Says Not Aiming to 'Replace Human Artists'
When successful artist Ai-Da unveiled a new portrait of King Charles this week, the humanoid robot described what inspired the layered and complex piece, and insisted it had no plans to "replace" humans. The ultra-realistic robot, one of the most advanced in the world, is designed to resemble a human woman with an expressive, life-like face, large hazel eyes and brown hair cut in a bob. The arms though are unmistakably robotic, with exposed metal, and can be swapped out depending on the art form it is practicing. Late last year, Ai-Da's portrait of English mathematician Alan Turing became the first artwork by a humanoid robot to be sold at auction, fetching over $1 million, said AFP. But as Ai-Da unveiled its latest creation -- an oil painting entitled "Algorithm King", conceived using artificial intelligence -- the humanoid insisted the work's importance could not be measured in money. "The value of my artwork is to serve as a catalyst for discussions that explore ethical dimensions to new technologies," the robot told AFP at Britain's diplomatic mission in Geneva, where the new portrait of King Charles will be housed. The idea, Ai-Da insisted in a slow, deliberate cadence, was to "foster critical thinking and encourage responsible innovation for more equitable and sustainable futures". 'Unique and creative' Speaking on the sidelines of the United Nations' AI for Good summit, Ai-Da, who has done sketches, paintings and sculptures, detailed the methods and inspiration behind the work. "When creating my art, I use a variety of AI algorithms," the robot said. "I start with a basic idea or concept that I want to explore, and I think about the purpose of the art. What will it say?" The humanoid pointed out that "King Charles has used his platform to raise awareness on environmental conservation and interfaith dialog. I have aimed this portrait to celebrate" that, it said, adding: "I hope King Charles will be appreciative of my efforts." Aidan Meller, a specialist in modern and contemporary art, led the team that created Ai-Da in 2019 with artificial intelligence specialists at the universities of Oxford and Birmingham. He told AFP that he had conceived the humanoid robot -- named after the world's first computer programmer Ada Lovelace -- as an ethical arts project, and not "to replace the painters". Ai-Da agreed. There is "no doubt that AI is changing our world, (including) the art world and forms of human creative expression", the robot acknowledged. But "I do not believe AI or my artwork will replace human artists." Instead, Ai-Da said, the aim was "to inspire viewers to think about how we use AI positively, while remaining conscious of its risks and limitations". Asked if a painting made by a machine could really be considered art, the robot insisted: "My artwork is unique and creative." "Whether humans decide it is art is an important and interesting point of conversation."
