Pamela Anderson: The Swinger
Pamela Anderson Lee's new flick Barb Wire may or may not make her the next Sharon Stone. She knows how to cause a Stone-size sensation in any case. Here, the global TV sex bomb chats about her two weddings to rocker Tommy Lee, explains how their honeymoon photos wound up in print, and charges that both Playboy and "Baywatch" are ripping her off.
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Stepping off a photographer's set, Pamela Anderson Lee glances my way with a brow-crinkled visage that asks: What are you doing here? Then it says: Get lost. Instead, I introduce myself. "The interview, Pamela? I'm the writer." The Baywatch sex symbol rubs her forehead, trying to conjure a memory of our appointment, then transforms her features into a put-upon sex kitten. "Can't do it today," she blithely purrs. "My heads hurts." Because I've flown 3,000 miles to get an audience with the hottest blonde to come off TV since Farrah Fawcett, and because her publicist has called several times to reschedule our start time, I know I'm at the right place at the right time. Seeing that I'm holding my ground, she whines, "Then we'll have to talk." But first she gives me 30 minutes to cool my heels while she arranges to buy many of the outfits she's been shot in.
I decide to kill the time by thinking about whether Anderson Lee's first starring feature, a futuristic action flick called Barb Wire, in which she plays a bounty hunter with a penchant for skintight outfits and stiletto heels, will succeed in turning her into a big-screen siren. Given that Anderson Lee's claims to fame are that she is a) the most curvaceous of the Baywatch babes, b) weekly supermarket bait in tabloid headlines, and c) Playboy Playmate nonpareil, who can say? The producer of Barb Wire, Mike Richardson, believes an actress lurks somewhere behind the silicone implants and somewhere beneath the heavy-metal hair that brought Anderson from Vancouver to Hollywood six years ago. Her performances in TV films to date confirm only what her Playboy fans already knew: she's very photogenic. Still, big-screen careers have been made on a lot less.
Having let me wait a good half hour, Anderson Lee reappears and leads me to a small office, where--while she chats on the phone with her mate, Motley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee--I can't help noticing the tattoo that encircles her left hand's ring finger.
MICHAEL KAPLAN: What's the deal with that tattoo, Pamela? Is it a souvenir from your whirlwind courtship with Tommy Lee?
PAMELA ANDERSON LEE: Yeah. I don't really like jewelry and I think diamonds are ridiculous. I've never wanted one, and if I did. I'd buy it for myself. So many women fight over how big their diamonds are, but the size of the stones is really about their man's ego over his little thing. I think diamonds have a direct relationship to your man's penis size.
Q: You're saying guys with small dicks compensate by buying flashy engagement rings?
A: Right. [Waving her left hand] That's why I have no diamonds.
Q: You're not the only one in your relationship who's gotten a new tattoo. I hear Tommy's added your name to his prodigious collection of body art.
A: He's had my name tattooed in a few places.
Q: I've heard about one place in particular: his penis.
A: I don't know how that got out. After all, there's a very select group of people who see his penis. But it says, "Pamela.'" And when he gets excited, it says, "I love Pamela very, very much. She's a wonderful wife and I enjoy her company to the ..." Uh...
Q: Nth degree?
A: "... to the 10th degree!"
Q: Besides the tattoo on your finger and the ring of barbed wire around your biceps--added during the filming of Barb Wire--where else are you tattooed?
A: There's one on the inside of my heel that I've had for years. That's it, but I will probably get more. Tattoos are like stories--they're symbolic of the important moments in your life. Sitting down, talking about where you got each tattoo and what it
symbolizes, is really beautiful. Body piercing, too, I think is beautiful.
Q: Are you pierced?
A: Let's just say that I love piercing.
Q: I'll take that to mean that you are. So just answer this one question: is the piercing above or below the waist?
A: Some things have to remain personal.
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