The word “Intimate” is frequently used when describing celebrity documentaries, but it certainly applies to “Pamela, a love story,” which at one point shows Pamela Anderson lounging in the bathtub as portions of her diaries are read as voiceover. The result is a humanizing look at a woman often reduced to cartoon caricature, while occasionally feeling too conspicuously like a licensed product.

Produced by, among others, Anderson’s son Brandon Thomas Lee, director Ryan White (whose biographical documentaries include “Ask Dr. Ruth” and “Serena”) had access not only to her diaries but a collection of home movies – including, yes, the one stolen and posted for the world to see, of Anderson having sex with her then-husband, drummer Tommy Lee.

Anderson, now 55, speaks at length of that interlude, the invasiveness of having private material shown and exploited in that fashion, and what she clearly sees as a reopening of those wounds with Hulu’s limited series “Pam & Tommy,” which dramatized those events.

Anderson’s account actually does little to detract from that Emmy-nominated production, which was quite sympathetic in portraying the hurt she felt and the way the media treated her. Indeed, the clips presented here of late-night comics cashing in on Anderson as a punchline, or interviewers Matt Lauer and Larry King asking her about her breasts, do as much to endorse the Hulu version as undermine it.

“Pamela” makes clear that Anderson is letting her guard down right from the outset, as she appears makeup-free, hanging out in the small British Columbia town where she grew up, before getting discovered at a football game (fans “oohed” when she appeared on the scoreboard camera) launched her as a model and into the pages of Playboy.

As Anderson tells it, during that time she reclaimed her sexuality, having experienced abuse on more than one occasion as a child.

International stardom on “Baywatch” followed, and it’s amusing to hear Anderson reminisce not only about all the celebrities she dated during that stretch, but the whole “Running on the beach in slow motion” imagery. (There’s no mention of “Home Improvement,” or Anderson’s recent allegations in her memoir of being flashed by its star, Tim Allen, which the comic has denied.)

The indignities of that “blond bombshell” status are nicely documented here. Ditto for the intrusions of the paparazzi, who dogged her particularly after the whirlwind romance with Lee.

The feeding frenzy surrounding the sex tape “solidified the cartoon image” of her, Anderson recalls, adding, “I knew at that point my career was over.”

While “Pamela” handles all of that quite well, too much of the rest of it plays like the Hallmark Card version of Anderson’s story, from the cloying, saccharine music to the interviews with her sons, whose protectiveness toward their mother is admirable but not especially enlightening.

The last part of the documentary also feels a bit scattered, venturing into areas like Anderson’s animal-rights activism through PETA, her advocacy for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and, finally, her Broadway debut in “Chicago.”

At its best, “Pamela, a love story” strips away what in hindsight looks like misogynistic media coverage – obsessed with her looks and relationships – to consider the person behind all of that, while proving a little too determined and pliable in the goal of helping Anderson assert ownership over her narrative.

At those moments, “Pamela” might work as a love story, but it fares a little less well as a documentary.

“Pamela, a love story” premieres January 31 on Netflix.

source:CNN

By now the story of Pamela Anderson, “Baywatch” babe turned rock wife and erstwhile celebrity sex-tape star, has become familiar. It unfolded in public and has been rehashed many times since, most recently in a Hulu drama series but also by Anderson herself, in one 2014 book of photographs and poetry and two romans à clef. Given this glut of content, the arrival of a new memoir, in tandem with a Netflix documentary, might feel like overkill. But as it turns out, the most disappointing thing about “Love, Pamela” is that it doesn’t come in a form that can be injected directly into your veins.

Anderson is a natural storyteller, which shouldn’t come as a surprise; her ability to sustain a personal narrative is what’s kept her in the public eye for going on four decades. “Love, Pamela” is a dazzling and occasionally dizzying ride through this period, in which vivid scenes of ’80s and ’90s decadence bump up against blind items about Russian oligarchs and brief but iconic celebrity cameos. (“You have NO organs,” Tom Ford tells her, approvingly, after lacing her into a corset for a photo shoot.)

Woven throughout are passages written in verse, which is not as annoying as it sounds: There’s so much going on that you need the extra line breaks to catch your breath.

Crafting narratives is something Anderson has been doing her whole life, as we learn in the chapters about her early childhood on Vancouver Island, described in lush detail (“fragrant purple lilacs, sour grapes in vines strangling the trunks of tart green apple trees”). But interspersed among these sun-dappled scenes are episodes of harrowing violence. To cope with the traumas she experienced, Anderson retreated into her imagination: “a dream world,” she calls it, where she could “disconnect” — and thus survive — by pretending to be someone else. “It’s how I learned to control my life,” she writes. “One fantasy after another.”

There were downsides to this approach, among them her tendency to see “diamonds in lumps of coal.” Edward Gorey would have a field day with Anderson’s exes: Billy was in a gang and used nunchakus; Jack tried to run her over in his car. Playboy became her unlikely savior: The magazine’s decision to make her a Playmate in 1989 enabled her to leave a bad fiancé (Michael threw a tray of silverware at her head) and start a new life in Hollywood, where she could date nice guys like the director Mario Van Peebles. “We made love for the first time in a field of long, soft grasses,” she writes, “as horses ran by dangerously close, almost trampling us.” So that happened.

Still, Anderson cannot resist the siren song of the bad boy, and when the Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee sidles up to her in a club — “wallet chain swinging, no shirt on, just tattoos and nipple rings” — well, you know the rest. This relationship — which begins with an impromptu beach wedding in Mexico and ends, in horrible slow motion, after the theft of a private videotape from the couple’s home — is the focus of the Hulu series “Pam & Tommy.” Anderson’s version of the ensuing “sex tape” scandal does not differ substantially from that in the show (which she did not participate in), but the amount of space she allots it — one chapter — is a pointed reminder that this is only a tiny piece of her story. While it was “one of the most difficult things I have gone through,” she writes, recent reports saying it “destroyed” her life feel almost like a disservice in light of what, according to “Love, Pamela,” actually happened.

Which was that Anderson picked herself up and took herself back to her not one but two beachfront properties in Malibu, where she has lived a lot of life since. She raised her two sons (from her marriage to Tommy Lee) in an idyll by the beach where they surfed in the mornings before school and had random Tom Hanks sightings. She spent the next few decades doing all kinds of fun stuff, like pole-dancing behind Elton John, assisting a magician in Vegas and playing Roxie Hart in “Chicago” on Broadway. She’s been in something like 20 movies and 60 TV shows, and still found time to marry Kid Rock on a yacht, get drunk with Julian Assange and persuade Vladimir Putin to save 12 beluga whales. Recently, she was photographed dragging a Christmas tree through the streets of Paris in a fluffy white dress and matching hat. Evidence enough that Pamela Anderson has been living the dream, one fantasy at a time.

source: New York Times

Pamela Anderson is making the rounds, giving a series of rare, in-depth interviews to promote her new memoir and Netflix Documentary, Pamela, a Love Story.

During an interview with The Times of London, Anderson was quizzed about life and career and shared the name of the one man she believes is the only person to ever treat her with “complete and utter respect.”

“Hugh Hefner,” she told the newspaper.

Elsewhere during the interview, Anderson also discussed shooting her first Playboy cover, which she said helped her grow in confidence.

Pamela Anderson.
Pamela Anderson. Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for SiriusXM.

Pamela Anderson is making the rounds, giving a series of rare, in-depth interviews to promote her new memoir and Netflix Documentary, Pamela, a Love Story.

During an interview with The Times of London, Anderson was quizzed about life and career and shared the name of the one man she believes is the only person to ever treat her with “complete and utter respect.”

“Hugh Hefner,” she told the newspaper.

Elsewhere during the interview, Anderson also discussed shooting her first Playboy cover, which she said helped her grow in confidence.

“I was painfully shy, and I hated that feeling. That’s why I did it. I just didn’t want that feeling anymore,” she said of her decision to shoot with Playboy. “Doing that first photoshoot gave me this little kind of portal on what it felt like to be a sensual woman. My sexuality was mine. I took my power back.”

Pamela, a Love Story is the first time Anderson has provided a comprehensive on-screen survey of her career. Last year, Hulu released the limited series Pam & Tommy, based on the fallout of the leak of her sex tape with Mötley Crüe musician Tommy Lee.

Anderson has long slammed the series, particularly its creators, who she has said did not consult her on the series. During an interview with Variety earlier this week, Anderson described the creators as “Assholes.”

“You still owe me a public apology,” she said.

Later speaking with Howard Stern, Anderson said she felt like she had been “run over” after hearing about the show.

“I remember seeing this advert for Pam & Tommy and was like, what? No one called me. I’m still alive. No one asked me. It’s nothing to do with me,” she told Stern.

“I felt kinda run over by that one. I don’t think they portrayed Tommy or I very accurately. I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard from people that it’s a very shallow representation of us. I wish they would’ve called.”

source: Deadline