Pamela Anderson reflects on Detroit and her ‘Last Showgirl’ role

On By Littum

The beauty icon flexes her acting muscles in her new film, which recently earned her a Golden Globes nomination.

Pamela Anderson has lived many lives over the decades — “Baywatch” babe, animal rights activist, international sex symbol — and one of those lives brought her to Michigan.

Anderson married Kid Rock four times in 2006 – in St. Tropez, Beverly Hills, Nashville and Clarkston – before they divorced, just once, in November of the same year. It was a whirlwind time in a whirlwind era, but Anderson says she doesn’t look back with anger on her time spent in north Oakland County with the “Cowboy” rocker, whom she first met in 2001.

“I only have good memories from that time. It was really fun,” says Anderson, on the phone last month from Los Angeles. “It was a time and a place. It was a chapter in my life – it’s a different time now – but with some distance you can look back and appreciate the good times.”

Those times included plenty of outdoor activities for Anderson and her two children, Brandon and Dylan, now 28 and 27, respectively. “I remember a lot of snow when I was in Ortonville. I remember my sons on dirt bike trails and hot rods, good family time and cooking and hanging out with Hank Williams Jr.,” she says. “Bob (Ritchie, Rock’s real name) was always so great with my kids and his family was so generous to me. It was an interesting time that I actually look back on.”

Now, Anderson has entered a new chapter with her role in “The Last Showgirl,” which opens Friday in area theaters. Casting Anderson as a dancer at a closed Las Vegas revue, the film earned the actress a nomination for best performance by a female actor in a motion picture drama at Sunday’s Golden Globes, the first major awards nomination she has received in her career.

Although she didn’t win — the statue went to “I’m Still Here’s” Fernanda Torres — it’s a reinvention for the 57-year-old, who these days is more likely to grow pickles on her farm in Canada than she is. on a red carpet in Hollywood. (She showed up without makeup at the Globes ceremony.)

It comes as Anderson has had time to look back and reflect on his life and legacy.

“This is such a wild, exciting time. I had no idea this was how it all worked,” says Anderson, who after the interview was getting ready to attend the Golden Globes’ first-ever nominees luncheon with stars like Ariana Grande, “Anora’s” Mikey Madison and Zoe Saldaña. “I’m very new to all this and who would have thought this would be the beginning of my career at 57?”

From Canada to Hollywood

Anderson grew up in Ladysmith, British Columbia, outside of Vancouver, and she was famously discovered at a Canadian Football League game when she was spotted in the stands and shown on the stadium’s jumbotron.

At 22, her first trip on a plane took her to Los Angeles and the Playboy Mansion, and when she was the magazine’s Playmate of the Month in February 1990, she was on her way to becoming the defining bombshell of the decade.

From “Home Improvement” to “Baywatch” to her on-again, off-again (and heavily videotaped) relationship with Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee, Anderson was the physical embodiment of sexuality for an entire generation. In 2006’s “Borat,” Sacha Baron Cohen’s character tries to kidnap her because of the crush he’s had on her for years as a worldwide beauty icon.

During those years, Anderson says she always wanted more substance to her career, but wasn’t sure how to pursue it.

“I just knew I was capable of more as an artist, maybe?” she says, her soft voice wavering slightly when she says “artist”. “But I don’t come from an artist family. I come from a small town and I’ve never known anybody in this business. And so I kind of played it and I kind of felt like Mrs. Magoo navigating it was the best , I could, but I wasn’t offered serious material, so I just tried to be the best I could for those kinds of jobs, like ‘Baywatch’ or ‘Barb Wire’.”

Her way of atonement was to use the light shed upon her to bring awareness to her pet’s causes. “I knew I was getting attention for superficial things,” she says, “and I tried to share the attention with something more meaningful, like animal rights or environmental rights or vulnerable communities.”

All the while, she says her work ethic — which dates back to her high school volleyball days — kept her going.

“I love hard work. You can’t outwork me,” Anderson says. “That’s why I insist that I do everything and I do everything right and I go the extra mile. Because I have to. I always have to and I always will.”

Recent years have seen a softening and rethinking of Anderson’s image in the media. She had a successful run playing Roxie Hart in Broadway’s “Chicago” in 2022, and in 2023 starred in “Love, Pamela,” a Netflix documentary in which she openly and honestly looked back on her life and personal struggles , which coincided with the publication of her autobiography of the same name.

The 2022 Hulu series “Pam & Tommy,” meanwhile, spurred a reassessment of her famous sex tape with Tommy Lee, which was stolen from their home without permission; that the series was also made without her permission helped paint a more sympathetic portrait of Anderson, who for many years was chewed up and spat out by a vicious and relentless media.

Because everyone already knows so much about her, “I have nothing to hide,” Anderson says. “I’m an easy interview because I’m an open book.”

A ‘Showgirl’ rises

All the lives she’s lived are rolled into “The Last Showgirl,” in which Anderson plays Shelly Gardner, a Vegas dancer desperately clinging to the last glimmer of glamor in a long-faded show. She stars in the film alongside Jamie Lee Curtis, Dave Bautista and Billie Lourd.

“I couldn’t have played Shelly the way I played her if I didn’t have the life experience I had,” says the five-time divorcee. “Being married and having kids and being there for my kids and trying to navigate some personal crises that happened to a lot of us while trying to have grace and dignity? It’s been a wild, messy life to draw from. “

Adapted from an unproduced play written more than ten years ago, “The Last Showgirl” was shot over 18 days on film in early 2024. It is directed by Gia Coppola, the granddaughter of legendary Detroit-born filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, who says she considered Anderson for the role after seeing her in “Love, Pamela.”

“When I saw it, I could see that she’s kind of like our modern-day Marilyn Monroe,” says Coppola, on the phone this week from her home in LA. really She’s really interested in theater and classic cinema and she kind of got stuck into this trope that’s like Marilyn and like our character Shelly this lover of nostalgia and very vulnerable and soft but has a strong vision and she also seemed as such a wonderful person, so it just gave opinion.”

Coppola says she pursued Anderson for the role but was initially turned down by her representation. She eventually approached Anderson’s son Brandon, who brought the project to his mother.

“She loved it. She was so excited about the project,” says Coppola, who says Anderson brought something to the role that no one else could have.

“I think because of her similarities in her personal life, it adds a layer of meaning that I think we as an audience are really fascinated by and have so much love for,” says Coppola, 38. “And Shelly, just because of being underrated as an artist and the way (Anderson) worked and gave so much of himself to this project, you couldn’t have gotten that from someone who’s just been doing this for so long, because she had so much of what Shelly also longed for.”

“The Last Showgirl” premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and has been warmly received by critics. Anderson says she bonded with the cast and crew while making the film, and first heard about her Golden Globe nomination on her “Last Showgirl” thread.

“It’s a team sport and everyone is really excited for each other,” she says.

And no one is more excited than Anderson himself. She is on the trip of a lifetime, she says, and this time she is enjoying it.

“It’s been a rollercoaster, and this is the fun part,” she says with a giggle. “Woo!”

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‘The Last Showgirl’

Rated R: for language and nudity

Playing time: 89 minutes

In the cinema on Friday